Ship of the Line - The Death Star
by DarthTenebrus
Summary: YAHF, Xander chooses reluctantly to dress as a certain Grand Moff Tarkin. WARNING: First chapter, Prologue, contains a scene of genocide
1. Prologue - Doomsday

Prologue - Doomsday

**Ship of the Line: The Death Star**

**by Darth Tenebrus**

_Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any elements thereof, nor do I own the Buffyverse or its characters. Those belong to Lucasfilm/Disney and Mutant Enemy respectively. I make no profit from this save the satisfaction of writing what hopefully will be a good story. __**WARNING! This chapter contains a scene of genocide.**_

**Prologue**

The assembled Scoobies and remaining members of the SGC stood solemnly at attention in the firing room of the Death Star and gazed at what was once their world. The planet Earth now bore raw, angry scars that crisscrossed the surface of the continents in red and black where the land could be seen through the layer of smoke. That smoke now covered more than two-thirds of the planet's surface, land and water combined, and it was spreading with the prevailing winds at a rate that would soon blanket the entire world that they had until now called their home within another day.

Not that it mattered. The remaining population that had neither the means nor the time to evacuate to the orbiting battle station were doomed to a slow death at the hands of the demons that had overrun the Earth in less than a week. The combined efforts of the Slayer Command and the Stargate Command were not enough to stem the tide. When two hundred Hellmouths opened simultaneously across the globe on 21 December 2012, ISWC Director Rupert Giles had ordered Xander to call in the Death Star to evacuate the planet so that they could transport as many as they could off the planet. General George Hammond, now retired, prevailed upon the SGC's current commanding officer, Jack O'Neill, to persuade the President of the United States and the Congress to make the existence of the Stargate Programme public in order to inform the people about their chances and their options for survival. Money was no longer a factor when it came to the survival of the human species as a whole. The members of the US government that had been cleared for the Stargate programme and had also been selected as part of the subsequent plan to preserve government continuity had already evacuated through the Stargate to the Alpha Site, along with a substantial protective detail comprised of US Marines and Army Rangers.

NASA had been tasked with reactivating the Space Shuttle programme and taking the vaunted ships out of mothballs in order to facilitate evacuation of the civilian population, and the remaining shuttles that had not been destroyed in accidents were working overtime to ferry people to their rendezvous with what, incredibly enough, was a real, moon-sized weapon of terror, that would ironically now serve as the instrument of their salvation. Local aerospace engineering companies were tasked by Presidential mandate to build vast numbers of rocket ferries that would carry people up to the Death Star in droves, and passenger airliners were retrofitted with rocket engines to assist in achieving orbit and retrieval by the Death Star's tractor beams; the engines were meant to get up to orbit only, with one chance to achieve their goal, as there would not have been enough fuel for a second attempt nor a rescue effort. The Death Star's own shuttles were flitting back and forth again and again, carting refugees from the Earth in a mad dash against time and the demon horde. Even the Asgard and the Free Jaffa had been called in to beam people off the planet, some as they walked around in a stunned daze for the horrific circumstances in which they had found themselves, in as many numbers and as quickly as possible with their level of technology. But after a week of tireless, frantic effort from all parties, only a billion people had been lifted off the Earth. That was a miracle in and of itself, but it still meant that over six billion people would die at the hands and claws of creatures that held a burning, deep-seated hatred of innocence and purity. Far better to end all their lives in one instant from the battle station's superlaser and spare them the torment of an Earth become Hell. Let the rest of the universe call them mass murderers and committers of genocide. There was no satisfaction here, and the one who pressed the firing control would likely take his or her own life immediately afterwards.

That was why Xander insisted that he be the one to do it. It was his battle station, his Death Star, and he would use it now in a gesture of mercy; they had saved who and what they could, and he would be damned if he just turned the station around and left the rest to the whims of Hell, to suffer torment and damnation. He would also not leave the task to anyone else, since he would not see another living soul aboard the station have to live with the unimaginable guilt, the unending torment that would haunt them forever. It would have been far better, far more merciful, to simply kill them after they pushed the button. Not for the first time was Xander Harris now grateful for the memories and the personality of Wilhuff Tarkin buried deep within his psyche that enabled him to do the horrific deed.

He looked around at everyone and took a deep breath before he spoke.

"My friends," he began hesitantly, "I can't ask anyone to stay and watch what I'm about to do. I just don't have the words to express it." He paused in contemplation of the magnitude and horror of what he was preparing to unleash in the interest of preserving the dignity of humanity as he prepared to obliterate the world that had been his home. At length he found the courage, however small it may have been, to say the rest of it. "Those of you who decide to remain, please bear in mind that this is in fact the better alternative to abandoning our people to torment and damnation for much longer. We now take our world away from the demons once and for all, even as... as we ourselves lose it forever. "

Xander began to quiver in horror. He could not bear to look at anyone's faces now, knowing what he was about to do. It was only after a long moment that he finally managed to raise his eyes the brief few degrees needed to meet the gazes of the assembled staff and friends before him.

Rupert Giles regarded him with what could only be described as the deepest, most profound sorrow he had ever held for someone. If there could have been any other way to relieve Xander, or anyone else in his entirely unenviable position, the burden of the merciful genocide he was about to commit, he would have happily done so. Alas, it could never have been, and the look in Giles' eyes betrayed his greatest sympathies for the man who, had it not been for a simple change of costume choice that fateful Halloween day, would never have found the strength of character or the moral courage to take the damnable burden upon his own shoulders, would never have learned how to do what no one else in human history could ever have done. Inwardly, he wept for Xander more than the six billion doomed souls on the disintegrating planet below.

George Hammond and Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill were stone-faced as they took the measure of Xander Harris, scrutinizing him with the intensity of an electron microscope yet showing more depth of feeling, more emotion than anyone in their place had any right to feel in the face of such…

_There really were no words for this._

Buffy and Willow stood shoulder to shoulder, their faces unclouded by any hint of false pride or anything that could serve as camouflage for the terrible grief they felt for their best, their oldest friend since that first day in Sunnydale High all those years ago. Xander was grateful for the tears that streamed freely down their faces, even as he felt he deserved no such thing and probably never would again. He would likely never want to meet those eyes for a very long time afterward, if ever…

Faith had never felt so much pain before in her life, and she imagined that none ever had before, or would again. Her own relationship with her abusive parents had seemed like it could have gone on forever, and not for once did she envision that she would have preferred it to _this_, what Xander was about to do. What he _had_ to do. Behind her doe eyes, she wondered, and feared most of all, whether she or another would have to end Xander's life to ease his suffering. He had taken the damnation that humanity would have endured if not for his choice, and he had accepted it for himself, and now he had consigned himself to the commission of a horrible act that would in a single instant preserve the innocent souls of six billion and more from being touched and corrupted by the damned that had broken and spilled forth on the Earth like a virulent plague. She clasped Robin's hand as tightly as she dared without the use of her Slayer's strength that surely would have crushed the metacarpal bones in his own hand.

President Hayes stood with his Vice President, the Prime Minister of England and the Russian President, and all the assembled leaders of the nations of the world, every face slack with shock and grief for the young man in the grey-green tunic and trousers that had taken this on his shoulders, who had accepted that his name would be dyed forever in the pages of human history as the man responsible for the massacre of over six billion innocent souls. They did not imagine or pretend that decades into the future the remnant of humanity would remember that he intended for their souls to remain pure and untouched by the evil that had so horribly disfigured their beautiful homeworld, so thoroughly ravaged it beyond any hope of salvation or repair. They knew beyond any doubt that the name of Xander Harris would be reviled as worse than Adolf Hitler or Caligula before a century had passed. They could not imagine that anyone would wish this on their worst enemy. It spoke volumes to these heads of state that this unassuming young man would have the sheer guts to take this upon himself without any hint of self-interest or self-pity in his heart. There was pity and sympathy enough in each of their own hearts for that…

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity in which the smoke cover seemed to have grown even faster over the slowly dying planet Earth, Xander Harris took a deep breath and let it out loudly, steeling himself against the mind-numbing horror of the task, and he turned and walked toward the firing station just aside from the main screen, each step ringing hollow against the deck, sounding the alarum that signalled Xander Harris's damnation. He looked at the controls with disgust in his eyes, knowing what he had volunteered to do, volunteered so that no one else would have to be subjected to this….this soul-shredding pain. He looked back up at the faces of everyone, with a final expression on his countenance that pleaded with them that he didn't actually have to do it, that somehow there was another way. He met each of their eyes in turn, looking for the words that would save his soul and the lives of the six billion doomed Terrans, that would say he didn't have to now, that he had been brave enough for everyone. More than brave, actually….

A slow, small nod from O'Neill and Giles, as his gaze caught each of theirs in their turn, confirmed his worst fears, and then he began to shake worse than ever. Jack O'Neill had the calm look of a man that had accepted inevitability and the whole terrible melancholy of the moment, thus the calm in his voice as he spoke thus belied the great sorrow in his heart.

"It's alright, Xander," said O'Neill; "go on. Press it."

Xander sighed in despair as he processed those words in his head and in his heart, then he looked down at the actuator that would seal his doom.

"May God forgive me…"

He screwed his eyes shut, and he did not watch his own hand as it pulled the actuator down.

Thirty seconds later, a bright green lance penetrated the Earth to its core and shattered it.

Six billion plus people died instantly…


	2. To Challenge Fate

To Challenge Fate...

**Chapter One – To Challenge Fate**

_Disclaimer – same as before. I make no profit from this, I do this because writing is what I love, despite what others may have suggested as of late…_

_Author's Note – I have gotten multiple reviews running the gamut of reactions, from admiration to outright condemnation. I have read them all and I have realized that I really did not think this through too well, having written from the heart, so consider this an attempt to correct what to others might have been the one fatal flaw in this story. Even evilredknight, in his own way, has brought my several errors in writing this to my attention, and this chapter will seek to address those issues…_

_That said, let the story resume…and let hope live_

Six billion plus people died in an instant…

And then Xander Harris woke up, his sweat-drenched sheets plastered to his skin. He was still shivering from the horror of his nightmare, the images of which were very fresh in his mind. Almost immediately he felt an overwhelming urge to vomit, and he rushed to the head in his quarters on board the Death Star.

The _Death Star_…

_His_ Death Star…

He sat there for a long moment after emptying the contents of his stomach, still contemplating the horror of what he had witnessed. It had been a dream, but for Xander, it had not seemed any less real than if he had actually done it. Of course, he had known for a long time, since the sudden appearance of the Death Star over Sunnydale ten years ago in 1997, that something was going to happen, but that knowledge didn't make it any easier to live with. According to the dream, he was responsible for the deaths of billions of people. _His people._ He simply would not, _could_ not press the button to kill off the whole human race. He didn't care that people now knew there were more of their kind out there in the galaxy; to Xander Harris, the whole of humanity was tied to planet Earth, and nowhere else. He would not be responsible for that kind of genocide.

He would not be the fomenter of another Holocaust. He wasn't even Jewish, and he understood that part very well. Xander swore when he saw Willow again in the control room, he would take her aside and tell her about his nightmare.

"Why talk to her when you can do something about it, son?" came a voice out of the shadows all of a sudden.

Xander jumped up and turned to face the unseen intruder. "Who's there?!"

_Why hadn't the control room noted the presence of an intruder and informed him? The alarms should have been blaring like crazy_. Instead, there had been only silence to announce his guest's sudden arrival.

"All alone with your horror, are you? You know, the Powers would be disappointed, Xander. You have the means to lift every man, woman and child off the surface of your home planet, and you have a nightmare about blowing it up? Killing everyone, have you lost it?!" The intruder's voice was growing more agitated with every word, but what concerned Xander was how this person knew what he had feared ever since the terrible power of the Death Star became his exclusive province.

He fumed at this provocation from his unknown tormentor. "You have exactly two seconds to tell me who you are and what you're doing here before I have you thrown in the brig, mister!"

"And I was sent here to lend you a hand." He stepped slowly out of the shadows, revealing himself to Xander. An old man with grey, curled shoulder-length hair, a vest and long-sleeved shirt, and blue jeans with a leg brace smirked at Xander's challenge. "You oughta know who I look like, young man," he drawled on, "so I shouldn't have to tell you who I am…"

Xander stared wide-eyed, not knowing whether to look over his shoulder and expect Blade to suddenly appear. There was only one possible explanation, then.

"Whistler? What happened to the old look?"

"Just wasn't workin' for me anymore, plus I like Kris Kristofferson in that role. Figured I'd use it."

Xander snorted in disbelief at this insane drivel coming from the supposed Balance Demon who'd chosen to take the form of Abraham Whistler of "Blade". "So what's the hand you're supposed to lend me? What do the Powers want with me?"

"They don't want six billion people dying on them, that's what they want. Shit, boy, you're supposed to have the memories of this Tarkin bastard in your head, and from what I've seen of "Star Wars", he was one smart son of a bitch to use the Death Star like he did. Now you've got the Death Star, you know what else you have, don't you?"

Xander had started to settle somewhat; there was no way that a messenger of the PTBs would just announce themselves, but it would have made him feel just a little bit better to have been told first that Whistler was here before he showed up. Still, this was Whistler, and while he didn't much like the Balance Demon, he knew what the Powers That Be valued, and that was human existence. Ergo, they and Xander had something in common, and so he tolerated Whistler's presence.

"Yeah," he answered at length, "I have five thousand TIE fighters and bombers, all automated, plus I have at least a thousand long-range shuttlecraft that I could use to evacuate the planet when those demons finally break out, which I expect they're supposed to do sometime soon. Plus I have a shitload of allies in the US government, Stargate Command, the Asgard and the Free Jaffa. One phone call from here would get every Ha'Tak and "O'Neill"-class battleship here within twelve hours, with more on the way from the System Lords themselves, if they keep their end of the Protected Planets Treaty. Not that I trust snakes, of course…"

"Yeah, son, you got all that, you just don't have time to get it all in gear. That's what the Powers wanna give you, time. So they're gonna send your ass back to 1997 with everything you know up to now, which will come back to you when the time comes, of course."

"Yeah, didn't think it was gonna be that easy…" quipped Xander. "So what do I do?"

"You'll know when the time comes. You always did, son, so don't sell yourself short when you make a decision. You pick the Tarkin costume, you'll have this goddamn battle station and everything that comes with it. You make your allies and you get your shit wired tight from day one, and everything will work out just fine. That's what they told me to say to you, boy. So how about it, you ready for this shit?"

After a long reflective pause, Xander asked, "Will I have time to tell my friends, my allies about this? Since I'll be leaving them for this big do-over, they have the right to know, I think. And I need to know who's gonna take up the slack in my absence. Or will this timeline cease to exist?"

"Boy, I can't tell you about what's gonna happen here once you leave except they'll do the job the best they can when the shit finally hits the fan. But if you get this done right, then they won't have to worry about who's gonna die and who's not, cuz you'll have saved everyone. Earth will be gone, but humanity can go to other worlds where others of your kind will gladly take them in. You know where those worlds are, and so do your friends. But to answer your question," Whistler added, and here he pulled out a pack of Marlboros, packed it, and pulled out a cigarette then lit it, taking a long pull before continuing, "yes, you can tell them, but it won't really matter because they won't ever know you left."

"Really? No changes in my personality here or anything else that might jeopardize the mission?"

"None, Xander. You just go back to sleep, and when you wake up, it'll be 1997 all over again. No nightmare this time; it'll be like we never had this conversation, like none of this shit ever happened. Telling your friends won't change a goddamn thing, son, so let's just do this."

Xander did not speak for a long moment, for then he was suddenly lost in thought. This was his chance to evade the terrible vision that had haunted him in his sleep for weeks until now. To suddenly be able to do it all over again, this time with the knowledge of what was to come of that strange night…it was the dream of every man that had ever made a horrible mistake and lived to regret it. Though Xander mercifully had not committed the atrocity that had taunted him in his dreams, he was not immune to those selfsame desires. He would be far luckier than most men his age or older…

At length he looked Whistler in the eyes as the Balance Demon took another healthy pull (at least for Whistler) and lowered the fag from his lips, the tip still burning an angry red. It reminded Xander of the price of failure for him, for if Xander failed, if he were still faced with the possibility of having to commit genocide for humanity's sake, then he knew there would be no refuge for him in life or afterwards. Eternity in Hell seemed a sufficient motivation to make the choice of starting again.

"Alright, Whistler," Xander said finally. "Let's do this…"

"The Powers will be most pleased. Now get some rest…" Whistler stood up and walked toward the door, pausing to look back before he left Xander's quarters. "You're gonna need it."

********

**Sunnydale, 1997**

Xander woke up with a start. It was Halloween, and he still had not scrounged up enough money to supplement his rather meagre costume budget. Plus, his so-called "parents", for lack of a more negative description at the moment, had somehow found the little money he had managed to put away, save for a wrinkled five-spot, and they'd spent it on more booze. They were now sleeping off the effects of last night's binge, and he was left without a single thing to spend on any quality duds for tonight's mission.

That dreaded diminutive homunculus, Principal Snyder, had cornered the Scoobies yesterday, and he had demanded upon pain of expulsion that they would be required to supervise the elementary school children during their trick-or-treating festivities, so naturally all their best-laid plans for an evening at the Bronze had been cancelled without so much as a by-your-leave. It was no big for Xander Harris, though, for he was master of the two-dollar wardrobe. He would put together something from what he had on hand, and the five dollars he had to his name would be put to good use. Perhaps he might have some change left over, if he played his cards right, but it would be more likely afterwards that his abomination of a father would just beat him senseless again and take it for more beer. It was better to have it all spent by nightfall.

He rolled out of bed, his bones and muscles still aching from the beating he had taken from the abomination that called himself Tony Harris, and dressed in a hurry, throwing on his best Hawaiian shirt before throwing his book bag over his shoulder, pocketing the five-dollar bill, and slipping as quietly as he could out of the basement window before running to school.

**That night…**

"Wills, I don't know why you insist on the ghost costume, it's just lame!"

"Xander, it's a classic theme! You don't go wrong with the ghost!" complained Willow as she held a white sheet out of Xander's reach. It was nondescript, save for two eye holes and the word "Boo!" scrawled in red near what would have been Willow's midsection.

Buffy just snorted and yanked the sheet out of Willow's hand with Slayer speed, "Willow, you're missing the whole point, it's 'come as you aren't' night. This is your perfect chance to be sexy at last, to finally break out of your shell! Who knows, but you might even grow a liking for it, girl! What say I help you pick out something really spectacular?"

Willow blushed and hesitated before uttering a fearful "I don't know, Buffy. What if the others don't like me?"

They walked to the new costume shop in town, and Buffy continued to console a babbling Willow at the loss of her ghost costume. Inside, they browsed all the latest that had come in and was being sold for far less than what they would have had to pay had they gone with Cordelia to Party Town. Buffy found a rather elegant ballroom gown that would have looked excellent on an eighteenth-century noblewoman, while Willow continued to look around nervously. Xander was, however, drawn to the weapons racks by the assortment of plastic assault rifles. Strangely, he found something out of place at the end cap. Several small polished cylinders that looked like they were made to be placed in pockets and a small badge of coloured squares in a two by six array were stuck to a piece of cardboard backing and shrink-wrapped in cellophane with one word – "Tarkin".

Suddenly Xander remembered something. He wasn't sure what, but all thought of being a soldier for Halloween went right out the window. He stood there admiring the rank insignia and code cylinders of a Grand Moff when a voice startled him.

"May I help you with something, young man?"

Xander spun around screaming, "Gaahh! Don't ever do that to me again!" He stood face to face with an elderly man with thinning hair, a Brit by the accent, and wondered if in terms of stealth, the man might be a match for Buffy.

The Brit adopted an apologetic expression and replied, "You're right, I'm sorry. Where are my manners? Introductions first. My name is Ethan Rayne, and I am the proprietor of this shop, and I believe I can help you with _that_." He pointed at the Tarkin badges.

"Yeah, kinda had my eye on that, didn't I? I was actually in the market to customize a certain outfit I have, and these would fit just fine. How much you charging for that?"

Ethan smiled a greasy little smile and said "Seven dollars and it's all yours."

Suddenly Xander was at a loss. How was he ever going to get another two dollars? There simply was not enough time for it, and it had been a miracle that he'd been able to hold onto the five he had so far without Tony beating him up again and just taking it for booze, which left one option. He'd have to haggle for it.

"Seven doesn't look like the sort of money I'd be willing to pay for the cheap cardboard they're tacked onto, and the shrink wrapping looks like an amateur job. Tell you what, I'll give you five dollars, since it's all I have. Better in your hands than some cheap boozer's, don't you think so?"

Ethan, for his part, saw an opportunity here for some wonderful chaos, and since he'd labelled the package himself, being an old fan of the original Star Wars film, he'd gone for a touch of nostalgia. But would it please Janus? After a moment, he decided he'd go out on a limb.

"Well, speaking of my hands, I must confess that indeed that is an amateur job of shrink wrapping. I never was really good at it myself, and that's my handwriting on the package."

"Yours?" Xander asked as he gave the storekeeper a sideways glance. He looked back at the little package, then back again at Rayne.

"Why of course, dear boy. A man must do what he can to keep his business afloat in these hard times. He has to find a use for all his talents. Take your costume accessory, for example. You would think that it was a rare find, but in fact it would be so easy to cobble together something like this from lipstick tubes, cardboard, paint and glue, and to make it look as realistic as though it had come from the set of the film itself. This is one of those, but it looks real enough, don't you think?"

At that, Xander had to admit it had him fooled, but real or fake, it was perfect. Plus his Uncle Rory's old Army fatigues were so faded that the camouflage pattern was barely recognizable, and would not be noticed at all from a distance. He could cut off the pockets in the front and wash it once more, carefully as it had laid up in his Uncle Rory's chest of keepsakes and was probably by now fairly moth-eaten.

Or he could wear it as it was after removing the pockets, and simply tape the code cylinders to either side of the lapels and pin the rank badge in its proper place. A grey baseball cap, which had once been part of Rory's uniform also, would set off the piece rather nicely.

There was a reason why Xander Harris was master of the two-dollar wardrobe. Ethan looked at Xander's increasingly pleased expression and smiled to himself. Moff Tarkin's genius, his depth of planning and sheer ruthlessness would make an excellent spot of chaos this night. He finally said to Xander, "I see you're being rather a good sport about all this. Might I make an amendment to my proposed price, and let you have this for the five, plus something extra?"

That got Xander's attention. "Like what?"

Ethan smiled and said, "It just so happens that I have something special in the back of the store, in a box of odds and ends. After the store closes, I would invite you to remain behind and peruse those items at your leisure. You may pick any items that you find that would further complete the costume of Grand Moff Tarkin, and they will be yours at no charge, provided you purchase this at once." He paused to allow his words to sink into Xander's mind, and then he asked the final question. "Do we have a deal, young man?"

"Sir, this young man has a name. Xander Harris. And yes, we have a deal," the young customer replied, handing over the crumpled specie.

"Oh no, my dear Moff. Tonight, I think your name will be Wilhuff Tarkin…"

********

**An hour or so later…**

He watched young Harris walk away with a loose assortment of prop accessories that, surprisingly, he had found in the loose items box rather instantly, almost as though he had known in advance where they laid. Within moments, Harris had found a comlink, a blaster pistol, a small cap device in the shape of a tiered silver disk, and a fist-sized replica of Tarkin's brainchild, the Death Star itself. A black belt that Harris had found with a rectangular silver buckle fit him rather well, and grey spray dye for hair would give him the look of the Grand Moff rather convincingly, if Wilhuff Tarkin had suddenly found himself inhabiting the body of a sixteen-year-old boy. All the boy would need then was to put together the ensemble and shave his forehead to form Peter Cushing's famous widow's peak, and the look would be complete. He smiled as he made his final preparations for the ritual…

********

**1630 Revello Drive**

The knock on Joyce's door startled her out of her dinner preparations. She was due at the Mayor's office later for an exhibition of the Gallery's latest work, and the sudden appearance of company, even in the form of Xander Harris to pick up his friends, had just set back her plans. No successful divorcee ever learned not to roll with the punches, however, so Joyce sighed loudly and strode to the front door. She opened it to reveal an Imperial officer in full regalia standing proudly at attention with all the airs of an established aristocrat.

"My, my!" she exclaimed. "I'm due at the Mayor's office later this evening, but now I'm graced by the presence of a representative of the Emperor himself! Governor Tarkin, I presume?"

"You presume correctly, madame," replied Xander in his best imitation of Peter Cushing's Scottish brogue. "I have come to take three Rebel fugitives into custody, providing they are here, of course. Might I come in?"

"Please do, Governor," Joyce bubbled as she opened the door fully and stepped aside to admit Xander, bowing low as she did so. She closed the door after he had passed the threshold and straightened, and then she looked up to the top of the stairs and cried out, "Buffy, Dawn, Willow! Are you ready to go?"

Just then Buffy emerged in her costume, and Xander could not believe his eyes. Her hair had been piled up atop her head, and she wore the dress she had purchased as though she was born for it.

"My Buffy, Lady of Buffdom, Duchess of Buffonia, I hereby completely renounce spandex…"

"Thank you, kind sir," she effused, "You should see Willow, she's…" and just at that moment, Willow appeared at the top of the stairwell, her ghost costume in her hand, the "Boo!" scrawled across her torso.  
"…Casper," Buffy finished lamely.

"Hey Wills, nice Boo you have there," stated Xander. Willow blushed lightly under her sheet, replying "Thanks…"

********

The circle had been cast, the blood on his eyes and hands still fresh. Ethan Rayne lit the candles in the prescribed sequence and then began to chant in Latin.

_" __Janus, evoco vestram animam. Exaudi meam causam. Carpe noctem pro consilio vestro. Veni, appare et nobis monstra quod est infinita potestas. Persona se corpum et sanguium commutandum est. Vestra sancta praesentia concrescet viscera. Janus! Carpe noctem!"_

(Janus, I call upon your soul. Hear my plea. Seize the night for your counsel. Come and show us your infinite power. Person of the body and the blood itself is changed. Your presence is made present in the flesh. Janus! Seize the night!)

The blood burned on his hands and eyes, and then suddenly a cold wind blew through the room, snuffing out the candles and knocking Ethan back on his spine. He rose and surveyed the results of his handiwork. Janus would be pleased…

"Showtime…" he muttered with an exhausted smile on his face before collapsing…

********

_Author's End Note - I know I didn't get the translation of Ethan's invocation to Janus exactly correct, I was working off of Google Translator, and I tried to get it as close as possible...someone lemme know what the proper English translation would be and I'll paste that in here..Thanks..._


	3. Rumblings

**Rumblings...**

_Disclaimer - see first chapter_

**Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado**

**"****PROXIMITY ALERT! GENERAL HAMMOND TO THE GATE ROOM!"**

The rumbling started without warning, and Air Force Master Sergeant Walter Harriman panicked at the sheer number of alerts his terminal was receiving. NASA had begun tracking an object that had suddenly appeared over southern California, and now the US Geological Survey was reporting low-level tectonic disturbances all over the North American continent. The tracking satellites had suddenly been flung out of orbit by some massive gravitational force, and stargazers all across the country were phoning in about some massive spherical thing in the sky that had blocked out their view of the starscape.

It took less than a minute for Major General George Hammond to leave his office and storm across the gate room to Harriman's console.

"What are we looking at, son?" he inquired.

The technician was pale-faced as he made his report. "Sir, this object simply appeared over southern California less than a minute ago. NASA's been tracking it, but their satellites were somehow flung off course by some massive gravitational disturbance, and the US Geological Survey is reporting low-level tectonic activity all over the North American continent. I think we can get a visual of this thing with the few satellites we have left…"

"Put it on the main monitor."

Hammond strode over to the screen as best he was able given the rumbling that was still going on, and he saw something that made him blink repeatedly and rapidly. A vast expanse of gray unmoving static completely blanketed the picture.

"There something wrong with the satellite feed, Master Sergeant?"

Walter looked over his console and reported back, "No sir, everything checks out on diagnostics. Maybe if I…"

He pressed several contacts and then waited. Finally after a minute, the screenshot changed, and there was no more static, just a vast field of differing shades of gray. Around the edges, faintly, there was a blurring that suggested the object in question had a roughly spherical shape.

"Impossible!" cried out Walter in astonishment. "General, if the range from the satellite to the object is accurate, this thing's the size of our moon! It has a gravitational pull all its own due its sheer mass and volume. And only one depression above the centerline; it's too perfect a circle to be caused naturally…sir, this thing's not a moon, it's some sort of construct!"

"You're saying it's artificial?!"

"That's exactly it, sir," replied Walter. "And it just appeared without any sort of warning or notice; no indication of any cloaking activity, no deceleration, one minute there's nothing and the next it's just _there!_"

After a moment Hammond responded. "Contact NASA and tell them to send whatever satellites they have left to track this thing and have them set it to record at this range and half again. I want a complete picture of this thing. Any word on SG-1?"

"No, sir, they're still listed as missing."

The technician said they were missing, and that was the official report to the Pentagon, but Hammond knew the truth. He had sanctioned SG-1's mission to find and bring back Daniel Jackson from what he claimed was a Ha'Tak en route to Earth with none other than the System Lord Apophis on board. Implicitly, that meant that SG-1 was also tasked with stopping Apophis from attacking Earth by any means necessary. With no word on their progress so far, he had to admit he feared the worst for their mission.

The half hour that passed seemed like forever with the unceasing shaking of the earth beneath their feet, never mind that the entire SGC complex was buried half a mile deep inside a mountain. All of a sudden the rumbling stopped, and General Hammond called out, "Report!"

"The construct is moving away from the planet, General. Continental tectonic activity has ceased."

"Say again, Harriman?"

Walter looked disbelievingly at his console, confirming his readings. "That is correct, sir, the artificial planetoid has begun to move away. Gravitational influence is now zero. "

Hammond moved over to stand over Walter's shoulder and looked at what his senior technician already knew. "Thank God," he breathed. "Contact NASA and get us an update on the satellite's position and range to the object."

Just then a telltale blinked on Walter's console. "Sir, already getting a positive feed from the satellite. Getting an image now….sir," he now said slowly, "you might wanna look at this yourself."

Hammond moved closer to Harriman's console as the technician moved aside to give him room. Hammond did a double-take at the image in question. "You've gotta be kidding me…"

"No sir, I'm not, and neither is that satellite. Do I say it, sir?"

"If everything that satellite is giving us is right, you might as well, son. It ain't Goa'uld, that's for sure."

"Sir, that's no moon…it's a space station!"

**Sunnydale, California**

Wilhuff Tarkin blinked his eyes as he took in his new surroundings. One minute he was watching the main screen as the seconds ticked away, the moon of Yavin IV coming into range of the Death Star's primary weapon, and the next…he was here, wherever "here" was. It appeared to be a primitive settlement of an unknown world. He looked around to get his bearings and find the center of government for this place, and hopefully get some answers out of the local constabulary or someone else in the know. If they were smart, and they were smart to fear the might of the Empire, they would do well to give him his answers at once.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden terrible rumbling of the surface of this planet. He looked around for some sort of shelter, and then he ran for the nearest building. As he moved, he noted the passing of strange beings of varying sizes and species types. This was obviously a settlement in the path of civilization, if they catered to slave races as they apparently did, but the chaotic activity around him indicated nothing less than civil disturbance. Had he a legion of Stormtroopers with him, it would be quite easy to quell this bothersome unrest and restore order in the name of the Emperor. If he got lucky, he might even find a Rebel cell operating in the area, as they were known for causing such disturbances on Imperial worlds. The Emperor would reward him handsomely in such a case.

Tarkin looked around, taking in all angles to find the source of the tectonic disturbance, when he cast his gaze upward to the heavens. There, far closer to the surface of the planet than was called for, was the Death Star.

"How in the name of the Emperor did I come to be here instead of on my station?" he mused aloud. Just then he saw a young human female, an adolescent by her appearance, and apparently unaffected by the groundquake, approach him from a distance along the main thoroughfare. He pulled out his blaster pistol and shouted, "Halt and identify yourself!"

"Xander, it's me! It's Willow!" replied the young redhead. She had come closer, and now Tarkin could see that she was dressed rather maturely for her age, the leather skirt and red blouse fitting her tightly like a second skin. Her boots looked stylish and well-made for appearance, but little else. For all the Grand Moff knew, she might have approached him to proposition him for sex, had she not called him by a different name altogether.

"I assure you, young lady, that I am not this Xander you speak of. Now you will tell me what's going on here at once, or I will be forced to fire on you!" He leveled his blaster at her midsection to bring the point home to her.

"Xander I honestly don't know. You-you dressed as an Imperial officer and now you are an Imperial officer, and I dressed as a ghost and now I am a ghost and…BEHIND YOU!"

Tarkin spun on his heel and held out his blaster, aiming at the two aliens that were rushing at him to attack. He shot them dead without a word.

"Alien scum…" he grumbled as he looked down at their lifeless corpses. He turned back to "Willow", whoever she was, and was surprised to see her rush at him as well. His surprise was only doubled as he saw her pass _straight through_ him. He realized in an instant that shooting her would prove useless; if she could pass through solid matter, then a laser blast would likewise prove futile. He holstered his sidearm and stood straight, regarding her with not a small measure of confusion and distrust. "What are you?"

Horrified at having witnessed her bestest friend murder two people in cold blood, she stammered, "Xander, I told you, people are turning into their costumes! You just killed two innocent people! No more shooting aliens!"

Tarkin snorted in disgust. "Those two on the ground were obviously not so innocent as you claim, since they attacked an officer of the Empire. They deserved their fate. And you still haven't told me what you are…"

"Xander, we don't have time for this, we need to find Buffy, she's in trouble right now; she's….she's being pursued by Rebels!" Willow realized that Xander clearly wasn't himself, and if she was to ever get him to help her, then she needed to indulge the masquerade for now.

Tarkin, for his part, decided then that whatever this female was, she deserved at least a chance if she knew there were Rebel agents afoot. And the Rebel Alliance was not to be underestimated, if there was a chance they had managed to infiltrate a settlement such as this and cause civil unrest of this magnitude. He reached behind him for his comlink and keyed in the frequency for the Death Star's command suite.

"Command station, this is Tarkin. I need a squad of troopers down here on the surface as soon as possible to suppress this mob and another to find and eliminate a possible Rebel cell operating in the area. Do you copy?" His request was met with static. That must have been another clue that there were indeed Rebel fugitives here. He turned to Willow, deciding for now to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"I will accompany you, young Willow, and you will lead me to this Buffy friend of yours. If there are Rebel agents there, then you and I will do our best to apprehend them until I can bring down a garrison of troops from the battle station," he told her, "and then you will tell me all that is transpiring here."

"As you wish, sir…wait. Did you say 'battle station'?"

"Has your incorporeal nature made you doubt your own ears? I did use those two words to describe _that_…" Tarkin replied, and he directed her attention with one pointed finger to the Death Star orbiting above.

Willow followed his gaze, and then she saw the Death Star with her own eyes. Had she been corporeal at that moment, the blood would surely have drained from her face as she stood in horrified shock. She could barely manage a whisper. "Oh, God, no…"

"Denial will surely gain you nothing, and we are running out of time. Your god is not here; that station is there, _and_ it is operational. Now I want those Rebels, and you are stalling for time. Shall I clarify things further for you?" Tarkin stated in a voice that gave Willow little doubt as to his intentions.

This cold, terrible threat from Xander/Tarkin shook Willow out of her despair, and she looked him in the eyes, her resolve face on again as she said, "Fine, but we need to find Buffy first, she's the key to the Rebels. We find her, we'll find your Rebel agents, and the Emperor will be greatly pleased with you. Now let's go!"

Tarkin chanced a glance upward at his prized battle station. He knew it was operational, he knew it would reduce this planet to its component atoms at the press of a button. He also saw that it was far too close to the surface of this planet. No wonder they were experiencing tectonic activity. Tarkin brought his comlink up again and spoke into it.

"Death Star navigation, I need that station moved away from the orbit of this planet. Its proximity to the surface is causing tectonic instability." More static greeted him in reply. "Is there anyone receiving this transmission? I need the Death Star moved away from the surface of this planet!" he returned, now slightly annoyed that there was no one responding to his order. He then shifted tactics; if no one moved his battle station to a minimum safe distance from the planet's gravitational field, then he would do it himself.

The planet lurched suddenly, and sparks flew from the settlement's primitive power distribution lines – unbelievably, they were still using primitive metal wire to conduct electricity – and Tarkin decided to follow his non-corporeal guide to a spot other than where he was at the moment. As he followed, he switched his comlink to a frequency reserved for the station's central computer core.

"Death Star computer, this is Station Commander Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin with an emergency command directive. Authorization Tarkin Three-Two-Seven-Aurek-Dorn. Move the station to minimum safe distance from the planet's gravitational field. Execute!" Tarkin then continued pursuing the spirit to her supposed destination, where he hoped he'd find and apprehend the Rebel cell that she had indicated was operating in the area. As he moved, he noticed a slight decrease in the rumbling of the planet's surface. The shaking continued to diminish over time until about thirty standard minutes later the ground he was walking on felt steady once more. At the same time, a woman screamed.


	4. Masquerade

Masquerade

_Disclaimer - As before, I own nothing. Characters and situations are the property of their respective creators under copyright. I'm just borrowing them for a bit, I promise to return them in pristine order...also, several excerpts of dialogue are taken directly from the BtVS episode "Halloween" and the Stargate SG-1 episode "The Serpent's Lair", both of which I do not own...thanks for reading._

_A/N - Long chapter here, over seven thousand words in fact, just couldn't find a proper stopping place..._

**Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD secure facility, Stargate Command Headquarters**

Hammond had a dilemma to solve. What does one do when the most fearsome weapon of mass destruction in the history of science fiction appears on your doorstep? Apart from what local scifi fans could glean from Star Wars trivia, he and his knew next to nothing about the gargantuan construct now orbiting the Earth just inside the moon's orbital radius. That had to be what now kept it from influencing the Earth's gravitational activity at this moment, which was a good thing, and everyone in Cheyenne Mountain was thoroughly grateful for it. While its volume and diameter suggested a much smaller size than the Earth's only natural satellite, the sheer mass due to its almost entirely metallic composition made it far denser, and thus it carried with it a nearly equal gravitational pull to that of the moon. The sudden appearance of the Death Star (Hammond thought it a surrealistic nightmare that the damned thing just had to appear when the Earth was faced with a possible impending Goa'uld attack) had thrown the local populace into a panic. The ones who hadn't managed to panic discounted the appearance as a hallucination; local police stations had suddenly been swamped with reports of public drug addict behavior in the streets, and police units were frustrated with the sheer number of calls they had to answer.

The only exception, oddly enough due to the astounding violent crime rate and the complete lack of competency of its law enforcement department, was Sunnydale, California. It had a murder rate at least twice that of Detroit or Houston, and yet also had the largest number of unsolved homicides of any city in North America. Hammond had to see the reports to believe them, and yet after reading one, he still ended up shaking his head in utter confusion. Gangs on PCP he could bring himself to believe, but the other reports were just implausible. How could a person fall over a barbecue fork and end up fatally impaled in the neck with it?! These Death Star hallucinations were seemingly ignored or went unreported completely, but somehow the Sunnydale population seemed to take the whole thing in stride, which went completely against logic. People there had a habit of rushing to get anywhere indoors before dusk and not going out, whether to work or elsewhere, until well after sunrise. Something in the night apparently scared them half to death. It was worth looking into, Hammond thought. He then suddenly took out a pen and a sheet of paper and made a note to send SG-2 to the town to investigate this oddity; mayhap it was nothing, but one could never tell with the Goa'uld as the SGC still knew next to nothing about them.

He was still looking at the main monitor, wondering why the Death Star was holding a geostationary orbit over Sunnydale. That was another odd circumstance; once it ceased to affect the Earth's tectonic activity upon moving away to a minimum safe distance, it should have started to orbit the Earth naturally. The fact that it didn't suggested that it was under some intelligent control.

But whose control was it supposedly under?

**Sunnydale**

Tarkin and Willow came across a human female that was running through an alley alone. She looked to all the galaxy like a young princess from one of the Core Worlds, perhaps Eriadu or some out of the way backwater world that constantly sequestered its nobility. Whereas Tarkin had never seen her before in his long life, Willow recognized her straightaway.

"Buffy! " To Tarkin, she called out, "Quick, over here, we found her!"

It only took a moment to catch up with the frightened noblewoman. Tarkin was nonplussed by the sight of her.

"This is the object of a Rebel pursuit? I find myself less than impressed; she looks as though she's never seen the outside of a palace," he snorted disdainfully. "Buffy…a rather odd name for a noblewoman of the Core Worlds. Perhaps you are from the Mid Rim?"

Somehow his words broke her out of her fearful state, because she turned her attention to him. "Rebels? Core Worlds? I know not of whom or which place you speak. Are you British, sir?"

"I am from the Empire, milady, and I was told that you were being pursued by agents of the Rebellion. Do you know where you are now?"

"Xander, this is Buffy, she's the Slayer; she can help us!" Willow interjected.

"A Slayer of what, per se?"

They stood there for a minute trying to establish some basis for questioning, when a ground car sped by on the adjacent street, and Buffy screamed.

"AAAAH! A DEMON! A DEMON!"

"Buffy," Willow sighed, "that's a car, not a demon…"

Buffy, for her part, had already ducked behind the Imperial Moff. She asked fearfully, "What does it want…?"

Suddenly from behind the party, a possessed trick-or-treater lunged at them, claws and fangs bared for the kill. Tarkin spun on his heel and shot the child in one of his legs, dropping him to the ground, writhing and howling in pain at the fresh blaster wound. At the same time, Buffy screamed and ran into the street.

"We need to recover her, Miss Willow, or she'll get herself killed. Then we'll take her to one of the medcenters on the station. I'm not about to leave an Imperial citizen to the mercy of these primitives…or the Rebels. Does that ease your conscience, Willow…?"

"Rosenberg. Fine, but first we need to go someplace safe. And does that pistol have a stun setting? Cause when this spell breaks that we're all under I don't wanna have to explain to Giles why some kids ended up in the hospital or the morgue with blaster wounds that can't be explained. Clear so far?"

Tarkin said at length, after giving it some thought, "Fine, we'll play it your way for now. But this goes far away from standard Imperial procedure, I hope I make myself understood here. And I think you could use a visit to the medcenter as well; standard Imperial medicine has done wonders for those with a predilection for anxiety. Perhaps we could cure that babble of yours…"

**Unknown location, aboard a Goa'uld Ha'Tak…**

"I can't see," said Jack upon waking up. "Ugggghh, what did they hit us with…?"

At first only silence answered. Then he heard a distinct, faint moaning similar to his own. He instinctively reached toward the sound and was rewarded for his effort by a painful compression on the meat of his hand by what were obviously teeth. The owner of those teeth grunted in effort, a female voice…

"OWW!"

Immediately the teeth released their cruel grip and the voice instantly shifted from angry grunting to plaintive supplication.

"Colonel?! I'm sorry, sir; it's just so damn dark…"

Jack was relieved to hear the voice of his XO, Samantha Carter. "Oh, crap. That's ok, Captain, I like your attitude. Teal'c? Jackson? You here?"

The renegade Jaffa's voice stated, "We are both here, O'Neill. As to your question, that was a Goa'uld shock grenade. Though painful and disorienting, its effects are temporary."

"Meaning while we soon won't be blind," piped in Daniel Jackson, "we'll still have failed."

"Been in worse spots before, Danny boy," said Jack.

Teal'c replied, "Not to my knowledge."

"Did you flunk the Jaffa training block on Positive Thinking 101?"

Jackson's voice cut in again, morosely. "They'll start by wiping out the major cities of Earth from above, in orbit where we can't reach them."

"Daniel…" warned O'Neill.

"Look, Jack! I've been through this before, I've SEEN this before!"

The colonel retorted, raising his voice in an attempt to break through to him. "Yeah! You went through it once before, Danny, and you SURVIVED! You can't give in to despair now!"

"Colonel?" Carter interrupted, "I think I'm starting to see something…"

"The captain is correct, O'Neill," Teal'c replied, "My sight returns as well."

Jack suddenly felt hopeful. "Now that's what I wanna hear…Everyone keep a sharp eye out as soon as you can. Carter, if someone tries to come in here, you, um…..bite 'em in the hand…"

Sam's snickering gave them all a little more hope.

**1630 Revello Drive, The Summers home, Sunnydale**

The door opened slowly, and a blaster pistol poked in, followed by Tarkin's face, then he stepped across the threshold after a quiet moment.

"We appear to be alone here. It should be safe. You're sure this is our Buffy's residence?" Tarkin queried to Willow.

"One way to find out. Hello? Ms. Summers? Dawn? It's Willow and Buffy!" When no answer came, she looked at the others and shrugged her shoulders. "She must be out, so I suppose we're okay. Let's get her sitting down, and then we'll figure out where to go from here."

"A question first, young Willow," the Moff interrupted while they led Buffy to a sofa in the sitting room. "You mentioned that we are all under some sort of spell. Might you clarify for me the specifics of this?"

After taking a moment to ensure Buffy was comfortable, Willow took a deep breath, noting to herself the irony of wanting to even as she knew it was not needed in her current state. Letting it out slowly (she didn't want to end up babbling in front of whoever was possessing Xander), she explained, "As far as I can gather, everyone in costume so far as we've seen has been enchanted and become the characters of their costumes, including ourselves. I'm a ghost, Buffy has become an eighteenth-century British noblewoman who I assume was living in Colonial America, and you, by your accent and demeanor, have become Governor Tarkin of Star Wars, though I have no idea at all how come the very same Death Star from the movie is suddenly here in the sky over this town. I haven't seen Cordelia or Dawn since we left to get our costumes, so I assume they went together to Party Town in Los Angeles. I suppose we'll run into them again before the night is out, and we'll see if they've been possessed as well. Till then—"

"Till then, we resume our search for your Rebel agents. They can't run from the Empire forever, and when we eventually catch up to them, you and I will make certain they never again trouble your community, yes?"

Willow was suddenly distressed. Just what would she accomplish while she was incorporeal? And what did Tarkin have in mind for her? Would he use that to intimidate the people of Sunnydale? Would he threaten everyone with the Death Star? A sudden chill went up her spine, and she decided she didn't want to know the answer to that, as the answers to those questions might terrify her. The Tarkin Doctrine, from what she read of Star Wars, was to rule through fear of overwhelming force. Her chill suddenly became a full-on shuddering in abject fear, the same fear that was explicit to the Tarkin Doctrine.

"We need to go find Giles…"she muttered, sotto voce.

"I beg your pardon?"

Willow was startled by his query. "Eep! I-I mean, we need to find Giles, he works at the school library; he'll have more information on the Rebel cell than I. He's one of my sources. And we should take Buffy with us, he'll know what to do with her until this blows over. I trust him."

Tarkin appeared to consider this for a moment, when all of a sudden his comlink chirped. He expected a shuttle pilot with the squad of troopers he had asked for, so he was surprised when he saw that it was not a standard Imperial military frequency, but one of the emergency channels. He keyed in, and was surprised, and more than a little distressed, at the voice emanating from the speaker.

"To any and all Imperial units within range, this is Admiral Natasi Daala. I am in a settlement on an unknown world with a contingent of Stormtroopers, and we are attempting to restore order in the middle of a civil disturbance. Request any and all available units converge on my signal and lend assistance. Does anyone copy? Repeat…"

Before he knew it, Tarkin had keyed into Daala's frequency and responded. "Natasi? This is Wilhuff Tarkin, do you hear me?"

There was enough surprise to go around, as both the speaker and Willow blurted out their responses at the same time.

"Wilhuff? Is that you?"

"DAWN?!"

Almost immediately, "Tarkin" recovered his bearing and responded, "Yes, this is Grand Moff Tarkin. Can you make your way to the local educational center here? I will be there shortly. I have also come across several Imperial citizens, one of which says she had information material to a current investigation into the whereabouts of a supposed Rebel cell operating here."

"I thought there were signs of Rebel activity here, but I must confess that I have no information as to where 'here' is. I cannot get a fix on our position relative to any known location in the galaxy."

"It would appear then, Admiral, that we are in fact outside the known galaxy. Just meet us at the local educational facility, and we can coordinate our efforts from there. Tarkin out." He turned his attention back to Willow and asked, "This Giles friend of yours, you say he works there?"

She nodded. "Yes. In fact, we might find him there right now. Let's pick up Buffy and get over to the high school."

Just then they heard another woman's scream outside.

"What was that?" The scream had woken up Buffy, and she cast her gaze about frightfully. "Who's out there?!"

Willow looked in the direction of the scream. "That sounded like Cordelia. We need to go see if we can help her. Buffy? Wanna lend a hand?"

"What? Me rescue a damsel in distress?" She snorted disdainfully, "I couldn't do that sort of thing; I was brought up a proper lady. Have you no men around here for that?!" Buffy looked then to Tarkin and asked, "Can you not send for some soldiers to save her?"

"Madam," said he, "we are only two, three if your incorporeal friend here has any way of affecting the situation, and we are outnumbered by a significant margin. Better to leave your friend to her fate and seek our advantage at this 'high school' of which Willow made mention."

"That's Cordelia out there! She's our friend, despite all we've been through together!" Willow shouted. As an afterthought, and to continue to influence Xander to help, she added, "And she's an Imperial citizen! Those might be Rebels out there! Would you abandon one of your own to them?!"

"Tarkin", for his part, did a double-take, and he keyed his comlink before he could look down. "Tarkin to Daala," he called.

"Daala here. I have my shuttle on standby, ready to liftoff on your mark."

"I'm altering the original order, Admiral. Have your shuttle home in on my signal. Your troops are to render aid to any Imperial citizens in immediate distress."

"I thought you said we weren't in our galaxy now."

"I said we weren't in any _known_ part of the galaxy, Admiral. This world and all its subjects are henceforth considered domain of the Galactic Empire until we know more about our current situation. Now get your troops over here and make certain they are on the alert."

"Will do, sir." The comlink keyed off, and "Tarkin" looked at Willow.

"Our reinforcements should arrive in a matter of moments. Shall we make good your Cordelia's rescue?"

Willow nodded, and "Tarkin" got up and strode over to the front door. Buffy started in a fright.

"Is he abandoning us?!"

"My dear young lady," he replied to Buffy, "I intend to leave no one here to the tender mercies of the Rebellion. You and Willow will accompany me."

"I'm not going out there! I'd sooner die!"

"Then die you shall." At a glare from Willow, he added, "Or you can accompany me while the good Admiral brings her troopers' fire to bear on whoever is pursuing your friend out there."

"I'm going behind you, then."

"Fair enough. Now let's get moving."

Outside, they moved slowly, being bogged down as they were by the slow, tiny steps of the possessed Slayer. They soon made it into the business district, however, just before they were greeted with another scream. A woman who was dressed in a cat costume was running from another one of the possessed costumers, at whom Tarkin had quickly taken aim and shot with a burst of blue light from his blaster pistol. At Willow's and Buffy's confusion, he nodded and reassured them both.

"That was the stun setting you requested that I use, my ladies. Your friend's pursuer will wake up momentarily and be none the worse for wear, though perhaps he may have a mild headache. Shall we?"

Willow nodded, and Buffy was quick to second that motion. The trio crossed the distance to where the young lady in the cat costume stood incredulous as to what happened. Upon looking up, she saw them and sighed in relief.

"Oh, Xander. Thanks, I—Hey wait a minute. What's going on here, and how did you manage to drop JoJo the Dog Faced Boy with a laser gun?"

Willow did the talking at this point. "Okay, your name is Cordelia Chase, you're not a cat, you're in high school, and we're your friends, sort of…"

"Great. You went loopy when?", said Cordelia with a caustic smile on her face.

"Wait. Why haven't you turned into your costume?"

"Gee, I dunno, perhaps because I went to a real costume shop and bought something classy! Where did you go, Skanks 'R' Us?"

Willow's face then turned an angry red. "Hey, I'm not a skank, Miss…miss…oh, I'll find an insult for you later! Right now we need to take Buffy to Giles!"

It was at that moment that bright lights illuminated the ground around them. They looked up to see a large winged thing with an equally large tail slowly settle onto the pavement. Its ramp began to open almost before the _Lambda_-class Imperial shuttle touched down, and a woman with bright red hair and an Imperial uniform with the rank and code cylinders of an admiral stepped out, accompanied by three Stormtroopers.

"My apologies, Governor Tarkin, but these are all I could get together on such short notice. Where's the disturbance?" stated Admiral Daala.

"Oh, great. One Summers freak isn't bad enough, I have to have the whole litter?" groused Cordelia.

Willow looked at her, and an evil grin formed on her features. "You know, we could just leave you here," she said coolly, just before she walked straight through her high school nemesis. The act shocked Cordelia to her core. Appearing behind her, Willow spoke again, in her ear for good measure. "Or you could make nice with the other girls here. You know, show the dumb old men here why the fairer sex is the better sex?"

An ashen-faced Queen C replied in little more than a frightened whisper, "When did you get so scary all of a sudden, Rosenberg?"

"Get your high-class ass on that shuttle, Chase…"

The ramp closed as soon as everyone boarded. Mere seconds later, they found themselves at Sunnydale High School. Inside, Rupert Giles was busier than usual, trying to find out the source of the night's unusual activity as well as picking up the books that had fallen from the stacks when the earthquake struck. The four Scoobies and Cordelia suddenly burst in, Willow leading and Buffy in the middle between Xander and Dawn. The sudden tramping and their chaotic chattering startled the Watcher, causing him to jump up and bang his head on a library shelf, spilling yet more ancient tomes that hadn't yet fallen from the earthquake.

"Ow! Oh, bugger all!"

"Giles, is everything all right? We have a situation, everyone's under some spell and turned into their costumes except for Cordelia here, Buffy can't Slay and Xander's become Tarkin from Star Wars now and have you looked up at the sky lately?!"

"Willow! Stop and breathe for a moment. To answer your questions in turn, no, I have neither noticed such changes, nor have I had the opportunity to notice, nor to gaze at the stars as my duties here tonight have required me to devote a large measure of my time to recovering certain of these most rare and ancient volumes of arcane information, without which any means of battling and eliminating certain demonic species may be forever lost! And yes, I have had the unique privilege of learning how to decipher your babbling."

Willow nodded, "Proud of you, Giles, now can we step outside?"

As soon as they did so, Willow pointed up. The redoubtable librarian followed her gaze…

And at that point he paled visibly as he noticed the Death Star floating motionless over Sunnydale, just inside lunar orbit.

"Now look at their costumes, Giles," said Willow, indicating the other Scoobies. He looked over Buffy first, then at Xander and Dawn. The first thing he noticed was that Dawn's hair was now a bright, flaming red.

The second thing he noticed was that their costumes indeed looked far more authentic, and fit much better than before night fell…as did the props. He looked up again, at the orbiting Death Star above. And suddenly a familiar feeling of loathing came over Giles, a loathing of something familiar…or someone. He just couldn't put his finger on it.

Xander, or whoever Xander thought he was at the moment, approached him then, looking him over and scrutinizing him, perhaps evaluating him for something. He then spoke in a Scottish brogue quite like that of Peter Cushing.

"I am told you have pertinent information regarding a Rebel cell that is rumored to be operating in this settlement," Xander stated. The tone of his voice mirrored that of a certain character that wore that same costume.

"Are you supposed to be Moff Tarkin? Quite the resemblance, that," said Giles.

A glare soon appeared on the boy's features, and with a frosty tone, Xander stated, "You doubt my identity, sir?" He stepped closer to Giles then, the glare increasing in its intensity, and his brogue thickened slightly as he began a tirade. "Perhaps you also doubt the reality of that battle station above this world of yours. With but a simple command to its primary computer system, I directed the station to move to a minimum safe distance, thus putting an end to the recent tectonic disturbances. And were I on that station right now, and there was but a rumor of Rebel activity on this planet, I would fire that Death Star and annihilate this planet and all who are on it with yet another simple command, so I urge you this moment to disclose to me any information you may have concerning the Rebels in question."

In the mind of Giles, Xander appeared quite convinced he was the Grand Moff, and so he had gotten a clue as to who might have been behind the chaos of tonight's events. He looked at Cordelia and asked a direct question.

"Willow says you weren't changed by whatever caused this; is she correct?"

"Huh, Giles, I consider it a point of societal pride that I choose not to mingle with the common folk of this…town. So I'm thankful that I haven't been changed into my costume," she answered, in full-on Queen C mode.

"And where did you get your costume, if I may ask?" he returned.

"I thought you British guys were all about status and upbringing and the whole society shtick. I looked for a costume shop that actually sold _quality_ costumes, not these _rags_ that everyone else here seems to have cobbled together. Sadly, the only one within any close distance of here that could remotely suit my needs was Party Town, in Los Angeles. You should try it sometime, _if_ the school ever decides to give you a raise, that is…"

"Interesting…." Giles answered, in a thoughtful tone. He then turned to Willow and asked, "And where did everyone else get their costumes?"

"Um, we all went to this new costume place in town. Some place called Ethan's, I think; where's this going?"

That was all Giles needed to hear. He pulled off his glasses, not cleaning them in nervousness for once, and the smoldering look in his eyes made Willow, Cordelia, and Buffy take a step back. He looked Xander/Tarkin squarely in the eyes.

"Does that work as well?" he asked, indicating the blaster pistol at Xander's hip. At Xander's and Willow's simultaneous nods, he replied, "I think I shall need it, then, if the one I suspect is behind this whole chaotic charade is truly here in town…"

Willow surged forward, forgetting that she was at the moment still incorporeal, and in her sudden attempt to seize him, she passed straight through Giles, causing him to stiffen in shock momentarily.

"Willow, I do believe that was the most unsettling experience of my entire life. Was that truly necessary?" a visibly shaken Giles responded to her action.

She stepped in front of him and, turning to face the librarian and Watcher, regarded him with a confident smirk. "It got your attention, didn't it? Now, before we go off half-cocked on some fool's errand to set things right, maybe we should think about ending the spell first?"

In just that one moment of speaking, Giles had regained enough of his composure to respond intelligently, though he was still visibly upset at the thought that an old acquaintance of his might be behind the night's chaos. That was the operative word, whichever way one looked at the matter. "If the proprietor of the shop is indeed the Ethan I'm thinking of, there won't be any immediate loss of life, though that might still happen in the end. But I'm fairly convinced he would be behind the spell, and so he will know how to undo it. I'll simply…'persuade' him to put things right," he said, waving the pistol to emphasize the manner in which he intended to 'persuade' the man in question. "Shall we go, then?"

"I think we can do better than that, sir," said Dawn, indicating three persons disguised as Stormtroopers who had chosen this moment to join them. She also pointed out a rather large vehicle with what appeared to be folded wings atop the fuselage. "We can bring him here to you. Would you prefer that option?"

Just then Xander turned to Dawn, nodding his assent. "We'll do this favor for him, then he shall disclose to us the location of the Rebels. You have my leave, Admiral. Bring this person here, and then we will take him aboard the station for questioning." To Giles, he asked, "And his name might be, so we have an understanding of who to look for?"

Deciding then that after seeing the Death Star in the night sky, and seeing how everyone's costumes had changed and improved dramatically, and then seeing Willow simply walk _through_ him, that the shuttle and those Stormtroopers had to be thought of as real also, Giles gave Xander only two words.

"Ethan Rayne."

Xander turned then to Dawn/Daala and nodded his head. She turned to the three Stormtroopers in turn and ordered them onto the shuttle. He turned back to Giles and asked, "Would you care to come aboard? It's not the most accommodating transport, but it will get us to where this Ethan Rayne is, and then can take him into Imperial custody aboard the station until he tells us how to end whatever spell you say we're all supposedly under…."

**Star Gate Command**

"General? There's something interesting you should see…"

Hammond walked over to Master Sergeant Harriman's console once again. The Air Force noncommissioned officer was looking over a log of recorded activity going back to when the Death Star first appeared in orbit over the California coastline, and two entries were demanding the sum total of his attention. To Hammond's chagrin, Lieutenant Colonel Samuels, his Senate-appointed liaison to the Pentagon in recent days, followed him over. He was now watching as much over the General's shoulder as Hammond was watching over Harriman's.

"What do we have, son?" was his reply.

Harriman showed the general a printout copy of the activity log; almost immediately after reading the last entry, Hammond did a double-take, then he pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on. Clearly Hammond did not believe what his eyes were telling him.

He should have.

"Harriman, is this log accurate?" At the sergeant's nod, Hammond read on. "According to this, at the moment when the station pulled out of Earth orbit and resettled into its current position, a series of transmissions went out there. And it looks like those transmissions came from a town on the coast called Sunnydale."

"Yes, sir, that's what the log indicates."

"So basically," Samuels cut in, "you're telling us that that Death Star is manned, and there's someone in that town that's communicating with whoever's on board."

"And what's the Pentagon's take on the situation, Colonel?" Hammond asked derisively.

"I haven't had the opportunity yet to talk to my superiors about this, sir, but I believe they would want to establish whether or not that is the real thing up there and not some sort of mock-up. It would fly in the face of all science, but if that is the real Death Star up there, then it represents a grave threat to the safety of this planet and all who are upon it. Your Goa'ulds will have to take a back seat to this, I'm afraid, sir."

"No, Samuels," the two-star general replied with conviction, "the priority here is to locate and recover SG-1, and then we'll deal with that battle station up there. So far as we know, that thing has just sat up there doing nothing. A few transmissions went out, which we'll investigate while we see about locating our people. We'll do some leg work, maybe some paperwork, but the latest satellite pass has indicated no life signs aboard that station, so if that is the real thing up there, then it is under no intelligent control at this time, Colonel, and until we prove otherwise we will treat it as simply another object in space to be studied while we continue our efforts to accomplish the primary mission. Is that clear, son?" It was a bluff, but it was all he had, and it was better than doing nothing and allowing the Colonel and his Pentagon bosses to act rashly and endanger everyone on the planet.

"Sir," the O-7 countered, "the latest reconnaissance satellite pass also detected a strong magnetic field surrounding the object, and that could have obscured any life readings on board that Death Star. I strongly recommend, General, that we treat that battle station as a priority threat until we can prove it is not. Now, bearing that in mind, sir, I have some information that you might find useful."

"Colonel, this better be good." The look in Hammond's eyes promised retribution and the end of Samuels' military career if it was not.

"There are two missiles being fueled at Vandenberg Air Force Base right now, and they've been fitted each with a standard Mark 12A nuclear explosive device. But here's the thing, sir; these are nukes with a twist. Each has been enriched with the alien mineral, Naqadah."

"The Stargate mineral?"

"Exactly, sir," crowed Samuels. "The naqadah in the weapons will amplify their destructive potential a hundred times that of a 12A by itself. We call them our 'Goa'uld Busters'. While it won't be the same as shoving a proton torpedo up the Death Star's tailpipe, the two enhanced weapons together should make quite a bang, sir," he finished.

"And if that is the real thing up there, and those missiles fail to do their job, then this planet and every life hereupon will pay the price for it! That thing is supposed to carry a _superlaser_ that can blast a whole _planet_ into rubble with one shot! Are you willing to risk the utter destruction of this planet and all seven billion people on it?!" Hammond all but shouted at the Lieutenant Colonel.

"Respectfully, General Hammond," said Samuels ruefully, "the decision is neither mine nor yours. Absent the recovery of SG-1, our orders are clear. We defend this planet with everything we can bring to bear on the Goa'ulds or that battle station. Your part shall be to coordinate the evacuation of selected personnel to the Alpha Site while I direct the defense of this planet from the Goa'uld, should they come."

"Gentlemen," said Harriman suddenly, "NASA's showing two objects near the orbit of Saturn with unknown signatures. They're retasking the Hubble telescope right now to get a better picture, so it'll be another minute before we know more."

"Keep on it, son," said Hammond, "and alert me to any updates to our situation."

"Yes, sir. Speaking of which, General, Colonel Samuels," Harriman replied, "I'm getting a report from NASA; they've spotted a smaller craft leaving Earth's atmosphere, apparently from Sunnydale, and it's headed for the Death Star…"

"Track that shuttle, Sergeant," said Hammond reflexively, "and you tell me at once as soon as we can make contact with whoever's on board. I want a standard greeting and request for identification ready to transmit within the half hour, and I wanna be here myself when we send it out. Maybe we can make that Death Star work for us…" he finished sotto voce to himself.

"Affirmative, General."

*********

**Aboard an Imperial shuttle en route to the Death Star**

They had stormed into his shop an hour ago, with a mandate that he put an end to the spell that was afflicting everyone in the town. Under the expert occult guidance of Giles, the Stormtroopers had seized every artifact that could possibly be used to call upon the necessary deities and appeal to whichever one would be responsible for the spell's proper performance. Every candle, every scented oil, every tool of Ethan Rayne's chosen craft was confiscated, including a rather nondescript bust of a Roman god known as Janus after a round of Giles' aforementioned persuasion at the end of a very real blaster. He would have continued "persuading" Rayne to divulge his secrets in the shop, except Tarkin had persuaded in a pointedly more civil manner that there were far more effective methods of extracting information in the detention areas aboard the Death Star. Tarkin then set his blaster to stun and rendered the chaos mage unconscious for the duration of the trip to the battle station.

He had awoken to find himself in a small cell, not so large as to be roomy, but not so diminished as to make him feel either cramped or claustrophobic on the other hand, and he had also found his captors assembled around him. Apparently his rather lovely spot of chaos and unpredictability had backfired on him in a most ironic manner, for among his rather unwanted entourage was the young boy whom he had persuaded to disguise himself as the Grand Moff. He stood over Rayne now with all the air of a self-satisfied despot who had a prized prisoner in his cell.

"In case it escaped your notice, you are no longer in your own environment, Mr. Rayne. Quite actually, to use the local vernacular, the ball is now in my court."

"A pleasure to meet you at last, Governor Tarkin; I've ever been an admirer of yours –"

"Enough idle chit-chat, Ethan!" shouted Rupert Giles, who then raised a rather wicked-looking pistol and fired. The pain was worse than any bullet wound, as the blast of energy literally burned a hole in Rayne's shoulder. He screamed from the unendurable agony, just before Tarkin raised his hand and lowered Giles' blaster. In a quieter tone, but no less frightful for the words, he said, "End the spell."

Ethan Rayne smiled at Giles and "Say pretty please."

Giles' response was to place the muzzle of Tarkin's blaster in the center of Rayne's forehead and say "Pretty please, Ethan, tell us how to end the sodding spell and set everything right, or I promise you a world of pain before the end."

"Mister Giles?" The Watcher then turned to Tarkin, who had a particularly malicious smirk on his face. "I believe there is a better method of extracting the information you seek. Not particularly injurious to the subject, but certainly distressing to say the least, the latest model of interrogation droid uses a variety of methods to cause the sensation of pain without causing actual injury. We also call it a mind probe, though it does nothing like telepathy or memory reconstruction."

"It's a torture droid?!" Willow retorted, looking askance at Rayne, who regarded the whole sotto voce conversation with something approaching dread. Giles caught his gaze and smiled malevolently; this whole terrible episode stank of Ethan Rayne, he had thought, and it would give him no small measure of personal pride to see the chaos mage made to repent for his actions this night. Rayne's countenance was a mix of emotions ranging from fear of what unknown means of torment were in store for him courtesy of the Watcher and the young school brat turned Imperial Moff, to loathing and bitter anger at being humiliated and made to feel afraid, at having been shoved out of the spotlight for even a brief moment.

"Put bluntly, Mr. Giles," said the Moff. He crossed over to a comm panel embedded in the wall and pressed a contact. "Send it in…"

"At once, sir," replied a voice on the other end. The door then opened, and a large black sphere floated in.

"You can't just torture him! You've done enough already, and torture's been proven to not work, he'll tell you what you want if you just ask, we've been through this enough already Giles, don't do this, Xander don't do this you can't!" Willow cried out in a panic-induced babble. She looked at Giles and saw only grim determination in the Watcher's eyes.

As for Xander, she looked in his eyes and saw not her friend. There was none of the goofy humor or any of the wit or simple charm. In his eyes she saw only the hard heart of the Imperial Moff that had given the order to wipe out the planet Alderaan and its six billion inhabitants.

The droid had been outfitted with a wide variety of torture-inducing devices such as electrical probes, chemical syringes, and the like. This was the infamous torture droid that had "interrogated" Princess Leia in the Star Wars motion picture. Down to the last detail, it and its fictional counterpart were identical. The sonic warble that accompanied it as a white light revolved on its own personal equator even put Rayne in something of a panic; to hear it in the movie was one thing, but to see the real thing hovering before him and to hear that awful Doppler warble as it approached him nearly caused him to lose the contents of his bladder. His heart rate increased noticeably and his breathing quickened as he began to slowly back away from the mechanical monstrosity.

After suffering the terrible agony of a wound from a very real laser blaster, Rayne wondered in his horror what torments the Princess Leia had suffered while being interrogated by Darth Vader. He also knew he did not have her strength of will or character, and he decided that he would not see it continue.

For his own part, Ethan Rayne was never sure for a long time afterward what compelled him to tell them how to break the spell, but he was sure at that moment that he wanted nothing of the torment that the interrogator droid could gift him with. One thing was certain for a long time afterward; he never regretted his choice to end the masquerade that night.

"The bust! You have to smash the bust of Janus to end the spell!" he found himself blurting out.

"Is that the truth, Mr. Rayne?" asked Tarkin, not believing for a second what he had just heard. The Sunnydale High School librarian, however, for his part, inclined his head.

"I believe it is. A ritual such as the one that empowered the spell most of us are under tonight is fairly complex and such would require only a small effort to restore everyone to their true former selves. Smashing the bust of Janus, as Ethan has just indicated, should be all that is needed. Was the bust confiscated with all of Mr. Rayne's other ritual tools?"

"My stormtroopers took everything from that shop that was there, down to the smallest or least significant article, Mr. Giles," replied Admiral Daala. Giles wondered briefly how he had not noticed Buffy's sister among the rest of the Imperial troop, but decided not to concern himself terribly with that notion as the means to undo the chaos spell was so close at hand. "Shall I have it brought here?"

"Yes, please," was Giles' reply. Daala then walked over to the comm panel and sent for a detail to find the Janus statue and bring it to the cell, and about ten minutes later a droid walked into the cell with the item in question.

"Please set the bust on the floor in the center of the cell," Giles instructed the droid, musing to himself how casually he took the notion of a droid crew aboard the Death Star station. He then raised the blaster in his hand, but before he pressed the firing stud he looked at Tarkin and asked, "Will a burst from this be enough to destroy it?" When Tarkin nodded, Giles aimed down the sight and pressed the trigger.

The first shot put a sizeable crater in the male face of Janus, but did not destroy it. Giles looked at Rayne askance, then at Tarkin, who simply urged him to fire again. He took aim a second time and pressed the trigger, and was rewarded when the second laser bolt shattered the statue into a thousand red-hot fragments.

The costumed assemblage in the cell, to a man or woman, collapsed at once to the deck unconscious….


	5. Out of the Frying Pan

Out of the Frying Pan...

_Disclaimer - I own nothing, though I wouldn't mind. Description of the Death Star Overbridge comes from the relevant Wookieepedia entry. All else belongs to their respective copyright owners. Please do not sue me, ye almighty copyright owners...?_

**Out of the frying pan…**

"Oooohhhhh….did anyone see the freight train that hit me?"

"Already left the station, my dear boy," replied a familiar voice. "Quite odd that the station's still here…"

_"__Station?!"_ Xander woke with a start. His eyes took a moment to focus, taking in the details of the holding cell.

The holding cell on the Death Star…_So that's what he meant._

Xander took a moment to let it all sink in. It was not rational; they should be floating dead in space right now. "We're still on the Death Star, aren't we?"

"Astute observation, dear boy," said the voice that woke him. Xander turned in its direction and found Ethan Rayne sitting on the horizontal slab of metal that formed part of the wall and served as a sleeping space for prisoners. "As to why, I couldn't tell you except to say that the spell must have had some…unintended consequences."

Xander looked Rayne in the eyes, his momentary confusion now turning to an icy, patient anger. "That's an understatement if I ever heard one. You tricked us, you bastard."

"Please do try and restrain yourself, young man. We still don't know the full effects of the spell's lingering influence, so a word to the wise? Leave well enough alone until you know more about what the spell did, before you go gallivanting around trying to find the most novel means of disposing of me. I never meant to hurt anyone," Rayne groused.

"I should have figured you were behind this from the beginning," said a voice from the floor of the cell. Apparently Giles had been knocked out by the blast when the bust of Janus exploded. He looked better than he must have felt, surprisingly, other than a couple of small lacerations from a few flying stone fragments.

"Ah, Ripper, awake at last, are we?" queried Rayne. "Are you well?"

"Just fine, Ethan, you pillock, no thanks to you. You've managed to get yourself in quite a bit of trouble with Janus, I believe, as we're still on a battle station that by rights should no longer exist," the Watcher growled. "Have you anything to say for yourself that might mitigate the situation with us at least?"

A somewhat genuinely puzzled and apologetic expression found itself on Ethan's face, if "genuine" could even be a term that described him. As a Chaos mage and worshipper, he was prone to habitual mischief making, Giles remembered from their younger days. His reply was more genuine, though.

"Just that I had no idea that Janus would channel such an astounding amount of power as would create this, even if it were for his own amusement. The fact that we're sitting here on this station, talking and breathing, indicates to me that this is a fully functioning construct. I must say that I was genuinely taken aback when I noticed it was still here and we were still on it. And did anyone notice that one of our red-haired friends has gone missing?"

"One of…?" Xander piped in confusedly. He looked around and saw Dawn on the floor, still unconscious but resting by the way she squirmed on the cold floor of the cell. Amazingly, her hair had not returned to its normal chocolate brown hue. Then it hit him. "Willow!"

"If I do recall, she costumed as a ghost with an outfit from my shop…"

Suddenly Xander's eyes were filed with flame. He practically leapt at Rayne, snarling. "If she's not still alive when I get down there and find her, you son of a bitch…."

"You'll what?"

"I don't know. Shoot you out of an airlock, land a starship on you, something…"

Rayne's eyes widened in amusement and interest, and his lips stretched into a rictus of curious delight. "Ahhh," he stage whispered, "the show's not over yet, is it…? Tarkin lives within you still, I see."

_Within me?_ Xander wondered suddenly at his words, and then he noticed something frightening in his own mind.

Tarkin's life, his personality, every thought the Imperial Moff had ever had in his mind, every memory was there, in Xander's mind, as if they were his own. He had stood by with Darth Vader and Princess Leia as he gave the order to destroy Alderaan. He had ordered the crew of a starship to land on a group of beings protesting Imperial taxation policy, crushing them beneath its bulk and killing them all instantly. He had consulted with Vader to capture the Wookiee population of Kachirho on Kashyyyk and use them as slave labor to construct the Death Star.

Xander Harris saw each and every one of those horrible moments play themselves out through his own eyes, and suddenly his heart palpitated, and his breath caught in his throat. The memories of Wihuff Tarkin of Eriadu were so vivid, that it was no wonder Xander had to fight to remember that they were not his memories. That was not his life. But the memories would not fade. And what frightened him most was that a small part of him insisted that it was for the greater good that these things, these horrible crimes perpetrated by the aristocratic Tarkin were necessary to preserve order in the galaxy, even required. These were not the defining traits of Xander Harris, though. He was _not_ that person.

Something else made its presence felt then in Xander's mind…a nightmare of the Hellmouth opening. It was odd, that. Xander had made his peace with nightmares since he first learned of the Hellmouth's existence, had accepted that nightmares would be a part of his life from that moment on. This particular nightmare, though, struck a particular nerve in Xander's psyche, and he found himself wondering whether it was a dream or a premonition…

_Standing alone in the firing room of the Death Star…_

_The battle station's superlaser aiming at a particular world…_

…Earth…__

_The horrible, powerful beam lancing out from the energy cone formed by the tributary lasers, and touching the planet below…_

_The planet Earth blowing apart into red-hot, glowing fragments from the blast…_

Xander paled and broke out into a cold sweat from the mere remembrance of it. Nightmares about dying on the Hellmouth, getting gouged or bitten by a vamp and drained, sure, he could handle those. He expected to meet his end any number of ways, so dying didn't bother him. Becoming a monster didn't bother him so much either; he knew a couple of monsters who were some pretty cool guys. Even Deadboy, for all his being a vampire, was on the level, he had to admit. It was killing everyone he ever knew or didn't know, annihilating the whole of humanity, that caused him fear. The idea, the possibility, that he would or even could pull the trigger on seven billion people had been unthinkable…until now. He could hear the voice of Tarkin in his mind now as if it was his own. How the man was even able to rationalize genocide on such a total and massive scale…

But he _had_ done it before. Tarkin was a monster, Xander was sure. He purged all thought of Tarkin from his conscious mind then with a visible shudder, and he looked at Rayne with no small measure of disgust.

"Yes, you _do_…you _know_ you have his memories. And now _we_ have the Death Star right _here_ in orbit of our planet." Rayne was positively bubbling with glee now. "I wonder how far the functionality of this station goes…would its primary weapon work, I wonder? Such a prize….whatever are we to do with it?"

As Xander listened to Rayne go on and on, obviously pleased with the prospects of their newfound possession, or with the sound of his own voice…or both, Xander was sure, he slowly shook his head.

"You. Are. Insane. You are positively insane, and I will not use that planet buster if it was the only thing that could save us." He turned to Giles, who was regarding Rayne with an equal measure of loathing, and he spoke.

"We need to get home. We need to find Willow and see if she's alright." Xander turned back to fix the Chaos mage now with an icy stare. He spoke slowly, softly now, so Rayne heard the message loud and clear. "And if I find out that she's not in absolutely perfect health…Mr. Rayne…_you and I_ will have unfinished business. I'm sure you can appreciate that, being a man of _business_and all…yes?!"

"We need to hide this battle station, Xander."

He turned to Giles now, unsure of what he just heard. "Giles, what…how can anyone hide something the size of a Class IV moon?"

"We can move it further away from Earth, Xander, beyond the Moon's orbit. Mars orbit, preferably, but as long as it's out of everyone's eyesight, then we'll have done the job."

"We need to find out what's on this station first, Giles. What good's moving it out of visual range going to do us if we can't get off this damn thing?"

Just then they heard a moan from the floor. Two moans, actually. The three conversationalists looked down at the floor now and saw the Summers sisters moving around, getting on their hands and knees now as they returned to consciousness.

"Ooohh…Oh, what happened?" said the first of them. Dawn then looked around and saw the others looking down at her with relief in their expressions. She regarded Xander first and said "Hey, Xan, how ya doing?"

Xander smiled and replied, "Hey, Dawn Patrol, how ya feeling?"

Dawn reached up with one hand to rub the back of her neck. "Like I got run over by a clone turbo tank, but other than that, I'm a hundred percent." She then grabbed a good handful of red hair and pulled.

"OW!" She then grabbed two handfuls of hair by the tips and held them up to her face. "What happened to that red wig? WHAT'S HAPPENED TO MY HAIR?!"

"What do you remember, Dawn?" asked Giles.

"Remember? Giles, wha—" Dawn suddenly realized something. "Daala. Her life, her memories. Mine too." She looked around then, as if seeing for the first time where she was. "Giles…." She asked slowly, "where the hell are we?"

"Aaaugh, mon Dieu…*" Buffy swore in French. "Je le jure, je vais trouver celui qui conduisait le camion qui m'a frappé .. *" She then looked around at everyone; blinking repeatedly to be sure she wasn't seeing things. "And…" she then started rambling, more to herself than to anyone else, "why was I speaking French just now? How am I speaking French all of a sudden…I don't speak French…what the hell just happened?" Buffy then looked at each one in turn. "Where are we?"

"You've gone over the rainbow, Buffster," said Xander then. "We're on the frickin' Death Star…"

The Slayer leaned toward Xander with her head, and at the same time Dawn did a double take. The sisters then spoke as one.

"You're shitting me…"

********

**Death Star Overbridge**

It had taken quite some time to get here; the battle station indeed was that big. To the rear was a pit where crew would attend to their various duties; behind those was an array of viewscreens displaying multiple streams of information. Ahead of those , on the short centerline of the overbridge, or control room, was the battle station operations chief; this was the one post that Xander found himself in his nightmares, where he fired the superlaser that would penetrate the Earth's solid inner core and vaporize it in an instant, creating the impossible pressure that would blow the planet apart. To either side was a duty station where the Army and Navy chiefs of operations for the Galactic Empire would sit and attend to their particular work while aboard the station. The Death Star was Xander's now; he saw no need for these, as he figured since he was no political or military leader, he would never have any need to command an army or a navy. Ahead of those was the seat belonging to Grand Moff Tarkin, or whoever would have been governor in his place. Xander figured now since he possessed Tarkin's memories and, in a small dark corner of his mind, his personality, he should have been drawn to that chair. Ironically, the idea of sitting there repulsed him almost as much as sitting in the chair belonging to the Death Star's trigger man. He suppressed an internal chuckle at that.

On either side were chairs belonging to the Admiral of the Imperial Navy and the General of the Imperial Army. As with the chairs for the chiefs of naval and army operations, Xander saw these chairs as superfluous and unnecessary. Throughout the room were various duty posts where attendees would stand for the duration of their shift, accomplishing whatever their jobs demanded of them on a particular day. Xander had managed to find a console somewhere just off the detention level that showed a layout of the overbridge, so he knew that one of these was the security post; from here he could determine what the Death Star contained as far as a means of transport through space. It only took a few minutes to find it, and from there he started entering commands to view each hangar bay. He also pulled up a vehicle roster on one other screen to compare it with what he would see in each hangar bay. To say the list was extensive was the understatement of the millennium. From Tarkin's memories he knew that there were supposed to be literally thousands of flight-capable vehicles here, including TIE fighters, bombers and possibly Interceptors, including designs for more advanced craft like the Defender and other TIEs; nearly a thousand other shuttlecraft were supposedly berthed in the Death Star's hangar bays also, but Xander was looking for one in particular, which had berthed in the station no less than two hours ago. The only trouble was navigating the convoluted user interface system, which was as decentralized as the core systems on the station itself, which Xander had discovered after finding the location of the overbridge. There would have to be some changes made to the operating system in the central computer core.

Only five minutes had passed until he had found the shuttle that carried them aboard the Death Star, thanks to his memories of Tarkin's access codes; without them he would have to have searched system after system, roster after roster, which might have taken hours. He looked up at Giles and the others with a triumphant grin.

"Alright," he said, "let's get this death machine hidden. Dawn, can you find the navigational controls and set us a course toward the asteroid belt?"

"Asteroids?" asked Dawn skeptically. She looked at Xander as though he had lost his mind for a moment, and then the memories of Admiral Daala informed her that it was not exactly necessary to enter the asteroid belt. "Oh, right. On it, Xan…"

In just a minute then, Dawn had the battle station moving away from Earth, having set a course that would take them past Mars and its moons, Phobos and Deimos, to a point just inside the asteroid belt's inner perimeter, and just far enough away to be safe from any serious impact but close enough that the asteroids' magnetic profiles would confuse any sensors.

"Giles? Can you find Com-Scan and see if anybody's still looking at us? Chances are the answer will be a big yes, but I wanna know who they are in case we run into trouble when we get home," Xander asked.

"Sensible policy," replied the Watcher. "I'll start monitoring Earth communications and see who's listening." He then got to work finding the communications console in the crew pit. It took some time to decipher the strange alphabet, but Giles managed to decipher the Imperial writing system, and within a minute after that he was calibrating the Death Star's passive sensors to pick up Earth signals, and before long he was tracking several beacons trained on the Death Star from several US government installations, including Johnson Space Center in Houston and one coming from somewhere near Colorado Springs. Problem was, aside from his anxiety with working with strange and unusual technology, he couldn't identify the installation in Colorado.

"Xander, will you come down here? I think I have something…"

Within a second, while everybody was busy with other things, Xander came down to Com-Scan and stood over Giles' shoulder. "So…what's the what, G-man?"

Giles huffed in typical British fashion. "I do wish you would refrain from using that infernal nickname, Xander. As for my findings - which I must admit took a toll on me; if I ever see another computer again, it'll be quite too soon - merely look at this. A tracking beacon is locked onto us from an unknown source in the Colorado Rockies. The closest settlement is Colorado Springs…"

"The Air Force Academy?" asked Xander as he turned to look at the librarian.

"The same. There's also an unusual energy signature showing on this other console to my right, a type I think no one has heretofore encountered."

"Giles, no one has ever encountered this station heretofore. What's so different about this energy signature?"

"It doesn't correspond to any electromagnetic medium on the planet, and the Death Star's computer has no records of such an energy signature anywhere. Nothing we have, unless you count the Death Star primary weapon, could harness that much power in such a small space. Also, it's about a mile underground –"

"Underground?"

"Yes, Xander, buried inside a mountain, in fact. If you listen half as well in your classes as you are doing now, I daresay your grades would improve by a rather large order of magnitude."

For a moment, Xander was pensive. "Huh, I suppose I have Moff Tarkin to thank for that…remind me to drop a note to Ethan in his cell…hey, what's that flashing?"

Giles looked at the thing that had Xander's attention. A red light was flashing on Giles' console, next to a group of text lines that flashed in time with the light. The Watcher, despite his consternation at implementing yet another "infernal" machine, entered a command to display whatever it was, and then the text lines changed to display more information. "I don't know what I'm looking at. We have yet to decipher this language, but I think what we're looking at is an incoming transmission. I'll see what I can do to clarify this, but don't expect much for the first few minutes, Xander, yes?"

"It's Aurebesh, the alphabet of the Empire. It's still English, surprisingly, but they just use another alphabet. Alright, Giles. I'll leave this in your expert hands." That got another stern look from the librarian and history expert, to which Xander replied with a sheepish upturn of one corner of his lip and a sheepish shrug. Xander then walked over to Dawn's station at Navigation in the crew pit. "Hey Dawn Patrol, all stop, ok?"

"What's going on?" The younger Summers sister looked up at Xander, still fiddling nervously with her flaming tresses.

"Somebody back home wants to talk to us. I'm guessing military or government, so we'd better figure out something fast if we don't want to get nuked on our maiden voyage, ok?" Xander explained.

"If I can figure out what all this means, I think I can help with that one," said Buffy suddenly. She looked at her console at Tactical and started sending her fingers flying over the controls. At length she said, "Ok, I don't know the first thing of what I'm looking at here, but I think I just raised the shields and activated point defense systems. If any of those uncultured swine shoot first, then we should be able to blow up anything that comes our way. We might even be able to shoot back, incredible as the thought seems to me."

Suddenly Xander had a chilling notion. Could Buffy have armed the planet buster by mistake? By her own admission, she didn't know what she had done or was doing, so Xander looked over her console for the terrible switch that was the source of his nightmares. His breath came in shallow gasps as he cast his gaze over every inch of the instrumentation twice, then thrice before he was satisfied.

"Xander?" queried Buffy with some confusion. "Are you alright?" She hardly noticed how much more cultured her speech had become; she was so focused on her friend's pale face.

"Huh?" Xander looked up at the Slayer, his eyes filled with just-diminishing dread. He shook his head vigorously just before he answered. "Oh, yes, I'm fine, just—looking to see that we didn't arm the superlaser by mistake…"

"The supe-oh. Oh!" intoned Buffy in sudden alarm. "Um, did we? You know, arm the planet buster?"

"No," Xander said, the word itself greatly relieving his fear. "No, we didn't. The safety interlocks are still in place; we're okay, Buff. And as for the rest of it, my Duchess of Buffonia, you did alright. We have shields up and forward turbolasers armed in zones Six through Twelve North and Twelve through Twenty-four South. You did splendidly, milady."

A slight nod of the head acknowledged his praise. "Thank you, Xander."

"Xander?" reported Dawn from her station, "Engines answer all stop, no relative motion."

"What's our position?"

"We're just outside lunar orbit, Xan, and this thing moves like a hippo under sublight drives, so we'd just barely managed to get a tenth of the way to Mars, never mind the asteroid belt." She brought up a holo of the Earth system and overlaid their flight path, which ended at exactly the spot where Dawn said. Pointing at the area with one index finger, Dawn said, "We're just about _here_."

"Very good Admiral – uh, I mean Dawn Patrol, awesome. Let's turn this thing around so we can hear who's calling, Giles says we're getting a transmission from Earth. Establish a geosynchronous orbit relative to the source of the transmission."

"As you wish." Xander looked over at the main tactical screen dominating the forward wall of the overbridge. He noticed the stars had already begun to move as Dawn worked her magic, graciously supplied by Natasi Daala in her mind. Within two minutes or so, (_Damn, this thing is huge_) the horizon of Earth began to present itself. The Death Star's rotation didn't stop until the planet was firmly centered on the main tactical screen. Within moments the surrounding screen space began to fill with information about the planet, including a proper firing solution for the superlaser. Xander cursed himself that he was one of the few Americans who fully understood the Aurebesh alphabet.

"God, can someone clear this shit from the screen? I am _not_ about to look at our home planet through a fucking scope!"

"Xander, mind your tongue!"

"Huh? Oh, sorry Giles…"

Still, within a minute, the tactical overlay disappeared from the screen, giving Xander no small measure of relief; it was bad enough just looking at the Earth through that screen by itself, as he remembered looking at that same screen as Alderaan was blown apart.

He did have a question, though about what to say if whoever was trying to contact them turned out to be from the US government or, worse, the military.

"Giles, who do you think we should tell them we are?"

"I honestly hadn't given it that much though as yet, Xander," replied the indomitable librarian, "but I suppose we couldn't do much worse than tell them the truth. One explanation at this point would be as believable as another, which is to say no rational explanation would be very plausible. There are circumstances where the Council has involved itself in normal government affairs, in which cases the Council has required the use of nondisclosure forms. I imagine the same could be true with whoever we might encounter from the military. At some point we'd have to invite them aboard the station, but not before we insist on such a nondisclosure agreement." A telltale began to blink on Giles' console suddenly, distracting him from the issue at hand. "We're getting the message now. They claim to be a military organization calling itself Stargate Command, and they're asking us to declare our intentions in regards to Earth. I'm also getting what looks like a voice message…"

"Pipe it through to the speakers, Giles, let's hear it."

A male voice then cut in over the overbridge's ceiling-mounted main speakers. _"__Unidentified station, this is Major General George Hammond, United States Air Force. You are in restricted US military space. State your intentions or leave this system at once. Failure to do either will result in your being declared hostile, and we will fire on you. Repeat, unidentified station, this is Major General George Hammond, United States Air Force…"_

********

**Sunnydale, California**

Willow rose from the porch where she had abruptly lost consciousness. Casting the ghost costume from her body, she took in her surroundings as though with new eyes, wondering if she'd had a very weird dream or one hell of a nightmare. Then she started walking, not remembering for the moment, or even caring at that point, that she was dressed rather daringly for her age. She heard the clomp of her boots as they hit the sidewalk, and the sound reassured her that she was no longer dreaming, that she was, in fact, as wide awake as she had ever remembered being in her lifetime. A rather beat-up green van rolled by at one point, its red-haired driver looking out the window at her and whistling.

"Who's _that_ girl?" she had heard him say, which caused her to momentarily blush and feel self-conscious at what she now remembered wearing, before she decided _Ahh, the hell with it.._, and waved at him. She was still looking in his general direction as he rolled away when she bumped into a mailbox. She was grateful for the momentary pain, which reminded her that she was once again corporeal, still alive, and happy for it. Suddenly other memories of the nightmare flooded back into her waking mind, and she risked a glance upward, hoping against hope to not see something in the night sky. She saw the moon, still bright, still beautiful, still there.

So was the Death Star, its superlaser dish staring down at the Earth like some baleful demon's eye, and suddenly Willow felt a chill like nothing else, for if the Death Star was still there, then that meant the events of this night had really happened. Xander had costumed as Moff Tarkin, and he had been possessed by the Imperial governor and commander of the battle station that continued to hang over Sunnydale in geosynchronous orbit. He had not been himself, so Willow couldn't hold him responsible for the killing of two innocent trick-or-treaters and the wounding of another, but that was not to say others might not hold him to the same accountability. Willow only hoped that the inept Sunnydale police force might overlook the blaster wounds on the two fatalities and the one maimed child the same as they would chalk up a vampire attack to gangs on PCP or barbecue forks to the neck. Since magic had played a role in this, the possibility was very likely. Still, the circumstances would be very bad for Xander if that wounded child ended up in the hospital, Sunnydale Syndrome or not.

She searched for the child, retracing her steps from memory and hoping that he was still there. She had intended to take him home and treat the blaster wound on his leg with what little medical equipment she had in her parents' first aid locker. Since they were almost never there, she figured her parents wouldn't mind her bringing in a stranger and helping him until she could get hold of Giles or Xander, assuming they weren't still aboard the Death Star. Her parents, with the whole not being there and all, weren't exactly in a position to disagree or disallow it. It wasn't long before she found him, still in the street and clutching at his leg in obvious agony.

Willow rushed over to him, now regretting the choice of a leather miniskirt since it hampered her movements, and she kneeled down by his prone, writhing form, and removed his mask.

"Carlos!" she exclaimed in obvious surprise and concern. Carlos Traverse was one of the junior high students that she occasionally tutored in math in her spare time, and he and his best friend Kit Holburn were good friends to Willow. "Oh, your leg…" The hole in his thigh was no longer smoking, but the obvious damage would take some time to repair, followed by intensive sessions of physical therapy as the muscle tissue worked to rebuild itself. But he would need a skin graft to replace what had been charred away by the instant third-degree burn caused by the blaster bolt.

"Willow?" he whispered hoarsely; he had obviously been screaming a bit from the agony induced by the wound. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, Carlos, it's me. Can you stand? I've got to get you out of here; you don't wanna end up in the hospital with that.."

"Ugh," he moaned, as he tried to rise, "I guess I'm gonna have a tiny problem trying to run out of your tutoring sessions…" It was no mean feat for him though, as half of his thigh had been burned away, so Willow reached down and draped one arm over her shoulders. She picked up her leg until she had her foot on the ground.

"Come on, put your weight on my knee. I'll help you stand up, okay?" Carlos obliged her by placing his other hand on her knee and pulling his upper body over her leg, and Willow draped her free arm around his waist and then pulled as he pushed up with his good leg, grimacing and gnashing his teeth from the effort. He had not lost much blood since the wound in his leg had been instantly cauterized, but the pain had weakened him to the point where at least once his leg had nearly given out from the strain, and Willow had to struggle to keep his weight on her hip. They still managed, together, to stand Carlos up on his good leg, and Willow supported him as they made their way out of the alley and back to her house.

********

_*Author's Note - translation from French: "Oh, my God...I swear, I'm gonna find whoever was driving that truck that hit me..."_


	6. Vigilant Watcher

Vigilant Watcher

_Disclaimer - see chapter 1_

**Death Star Overbridge**

Xander looked at everyone with something more than a bit of anxiety, which was ridiculous given that he and his friends were in control of what amounted to nothing less than a gigantic terror weapon with the power to end all life on Earth in an instant. More than ridiculous, really; the idea of turning the Death Star's superlaser on the Earth had entered his mind for the first time, and it filled him with horror like nothing he had ever felt. The threat by the US Air Force to fire missiles at the battle station was laughable compared to the terrible idea in Xander's mind now. He promptly, violently dismissed the thought from his mind as the influence of what little bit of Moff Tarkin remained in his head, and he resolved himself to formulate a strategy for answering the general.

Then it hit him. Xander remembered wandering the streets of Sunnydale as Tarkin with a noncorporeal Willow in tow, looking for what Tarkin assumed was an Imperial informant, but what Willow, and Xander himself, though he had no means of expressing it at the time, knew was a similarly-enchanted Buffy Summers. He remembered also how three trick-or-treaters, whom Tarkin had assumed from his worldview were aliens, and how Tarkin had killed two of them outright and wounded the third. It occurred to Xander that, though the "vaunted" Sunnydale PD would more than likely overlook the presence of blaster wounds, Sunnydale General Hospital would not be so naïve as to exhibit the same lack of thoroughness and concern.

There were several reasons, then, that occurred to Xander as to why he should have them brought up to the station. One, he could remove the evidence of the callous murders committed by the Grand Moff. Two, he could evacuate the wounded trick-or-treater to the station and give him better medical care sufficient enough to thoroughly eliminate any evidence of Tarkin's callousness. The medical facilities onboard the Death Star would be advanced enough to prevent any scarring whatsoever when the wounded one was submerged in a bacta tank.

He also remembered something about Tarkin mentioning that those same medical facilities would be capable of helping Willow with her nervous habit of babbling nonstop.

That was it, then. Humanitarian aid it was. As for the sudden appearance of the Death Star over Earth, Xander could chalk it up to hyperspace capability, that meaning the Death Star was capable of appearing over a planetary body without so much as leaving an ion trail, as it took only the presence of a mass shadow in hyperspace to draw a ship back out into realspace.

"Giles?" Xander turned to the Watcher at the communications suite and asked, "have you familiarized yourself thoroughly with your station?"

The Watcher turned to Xander and replied, "While I have had some success in deciphering the alphabet used here, I still have some work to do concerning the technicalities of interpreting this console. Since your memories of Tarkin permit you to do the same thing with more success, might I invite you to approach and compose your reply to the good General?"

Xander smiled and shook his head. "You took the words right out of my mouth, G-man. Okay," Xander answered and then strode over to Giles' console. The librarian stood and offered Xander his seat, and then Xander got to work as soon as he could take it.

"Okay," he then said in a slightly subdued voice, more to himself than to anyone else, "I'm setting up to record a voice response, and I'm tuning down the signal strength so it won't blow out everything in that mountain when they get the message. As for the alphabet, this is Aurebesh, the alphabet of Star Wars, which I'll teach you if we can get some time to induct you into the world of geekdom," he finished with a slight chuckle.

Giles, for his part, sighed in despair. _Bloody Colonials…_, he thought to himself. He then continued to look over Xander's shoulder as the impromptu station commander worked his magic. After only a moment, the console signaled its readiness to record. Xander nodded to himself and began.

"General Hammond, this is Xander Harris commanding the planetary defense station Vigilant Watcher. We have just arrived in system to recover several of our people that have landed in the vicinity of the community known as Sunnydale, California, and to render humanitarian assistance to those same persons. I apologize for our abrupt appearance in this planet's orbit, and we will rest assured render what aid we can to those who have been affected by the appearance of this station. We would like to send down a few shuttlecraft to recover those persons of which I made mention, and then we would like to offer you an opportunity to come aboard and meet with us. I'm sure we can work out some sort of arrangement that would be mutually beneficial… Vigilant Watcher out."

When he finished, he looked back over his shoulder at the confused Watcher, and he noted the expressions of everyone on the overbridge, said expressions ranging from confusion to outright fear.

The Watcher then said to Xander, "Are you sure that was such a wise decision? This General Hammond does not sound like the kind of person who would take such a statement at face value, given the circumstances. And why 'Vigilant Watcher'?"

There was a simple answer to that. "I'll no longer call this the Death Star, Giles. If this thing can kill planets, it can also defend them, like a sentinel, or…", and here Xander's eyes took on a whimsical glint, and he smiled and said "a Watcher for a Slayer."

The aforementioned Watcher's eyes widened in amazement as his breath caught in his throat. At length he found the words to express his gratitude. "I'm honored, Xander, truly I am. Thank you. It still does not answer the question of how to respond to the message from the Air Force," Giles concluded, his eyes taking on a hard gleam as he waited for a good answer from Xander.

"I don't want them to think we're hostiles, even though we could swat down anything they shot at us from the ground without even a blink. Somebody down there knows what's up here, and they are more than likely scared shitless, if you'll pardon my language. We need to assuage their fears and let them know that we are friends up here, so we don't want to give them a reason to start shooting off nukes at us."

"Dear lord," said Giles as he removed his glasses and began polishing them furiously. The mere notion of atomic weapons being used was unsettling to Giles in the extreme. The assembled Scoobies on the Overbridge, hearing the extent of the conversation between them, began muttering amongst themselves in horror.

"Nuclear weapons?"

"Omigod, are we going to get nuked?"

"Highly unlikely, Dawn, we'll just shoot them down with turbolasers, simple as it gets…"

Giles listened to the mumbling and muttering, and then he decided he'd had enough. "Go ahead, Xander, send the message."

Xander turned to the communication console and pressed a series of buttons, and then he stood up and gave the chair back to Giles. "Done and done, now we wait. In the meantime, I want to go down in a shuttle and pick up anyone that might have had anything to do with our part in tonight's unpleasantness. Willow's down there and we need to get her up here, at least for now. I don't want to have to explain to the doctors at Sunnydale General how they got patients with unexplainable third-degree burns from blaster wounds."

"Agreed," replied Giles, "but shouldn't we be more concerned with the police? They will wish to investigate how those two trick-or-treaters were killed tonight."

Xander just cocked his head sideways and pursed his lips together in a gesture of annoyance. "Giles, it's Sunnydale PD, they're more likely to find a convenient cover for those two deaths, as this was a Hellmouth thing. Case open, case closed. I doubt there'll even be any interviews. No, the hospital people are the ones we should worry about, and that's why we need to get down there and bring everyone that saw Tarkin or Daala walking around or got shot with a blaster. We can cover it up better because up here on the Vigilant Watcher we have the medical facilities to heal blaster wounds much better and not even leave any scarring to show for it. No one will be the wiser."

"Well thought, Xander. Tarkin's influence must have improved your reasoning skills. I agree with your logic; we should board a shuttle and return home, at least until we shall be required to call this station home."

"I agree there too, Giles, but we should discuss that when the time comes. Buffy?" Xander turned now to the Slayer stationed at the Tactical console.

"Yes?" The bottle blonde perked up her head at Xander's call. "I have turbolaser batteries armed and ready should they decide to fire nuclear weapons or anything else. If they do get close, the shields should be able to absorb the radiation."

"On your toes, Buffster, I like it. I need you to stay here on the Overbridge and keep an eye on things while we go down to Sunnyhell and get our people out. If you start tracking missiles from the surface, let us know at once, yes?"

Buffy tilted up her chin in a very aristocratic gesture and replied, "You will be informed the instant I detect missiles being fueled."

"Hey, I thought _I_ was Tarkin!" Xander countered in mock offense.

"Please…" said Buffy, "I was a noblewoman from eighteenth-century Britain; I'm more of an aristocrat than you. Now get going."


	7. Tracks Covered and Truths Revealed

Tracks covered and truths revealed...

_Disclaimer - as before, I own nothing, try though I might. Some dialogue is taken directly from the Stargate SG-1 Season 2 episode, "The Serpent's Lair", which I do not own either._

**Aboard Klorel's Ha'tak**

Jack led his team down the corridors of the vast mothership, evading Jaffa patrols with the skillful guidance of Master Bra'tac leading the way. He was rather put out with the gruff treatment he had received so far from the venerable Jaffa Master, but the fact that the old Jaffa was in charge and knew the ship better than anyone here, save perhaps Skaara, kept him from saying anything really rude and permitted him to witness firsthand the superior manner in which Bra'tac subdued the occasional Serpent Guard as they went along back to the _pel'tak_. Klorel had just returned from Apophis's ship and had taken charge. It was not long before they would encounter the Goa'uld parasite within Jack O'Neill's old buddy from Abydos again.

They reached the _pel'tak_ sooner than Jack would have thought possible, and he started to formulate a plan to take the bridge when Bra'tac interrupted him with a wave of his hand.

"No, human, you will wait. You will know when it is time. Even now our two _Ha'taks_ approach your world, and we must strike soon before it is too late."

Jack was understandably put out. Bra'tac was going in there alone without any backup or any way to cover his advance on Klorel. "What are you going to do?"

The old Jaffa merely looked him in the eye and said "I am Klorel's loyal servant."

The four fighters of SG-1 looked at each other in only momentary confusion before they began to understand, each of them, what Bra'tac had planned. Jack acknowledged his team's mutual assent and waited while the old Jaffa walked straight in, and then they formed up on the door ready to charge in at a moment's notice.

**Pel'tak, Klorel's Ha'tak**

The doors parted and the Serpent Guards made way for the venerable Jaffa Master. Klorel was pleased to see his First Prime; hopefully he had carried out his orders, and the Tau'ri would trouble neither him nor his father any longer. He turned to Bra'tac and gestured him forward.

"Come," he said. "Witness the power of your god."

But Bra'tac had other plans. He regarded Klorel's host, the young Abydan boy that was familiar to O'Neill, and he let out the breath he had been holding since he had entered the control room.

"I cannot," he finally said.

At that, Klorel slowly turned to face the old Jaffa, his expression registering mild surprise and extreme disappointment bordering on insult and anger. In a voice that belied his emotional state, he asked, "Why do you defy me?"

Bra'tac's initial trepidation finally gave way to pure disgust. "Because you are not a god, any more than that construct out there is a moon," and he indicated the entirely-too-spherical body just beyond the Moon's horizon.

"The construct…" Klorel stated in barely-contained rage, "is no longer any concern of yours. You will die first before I turn my attentions to it."

Bra'tac stood firm in the face of Klorel's fury. "You are a parasite inside a child's body, and I despise you…" He raised his staff weapon to aim at the body of Skaara, to kill the child and the Goa'uld within, but it was Klorel who struck first.

"I am your god!" he finally shouted as he raised his hand device and activated it, aiming it at the old Jaffa Master's head and beginning to soften the bones in his skull, "and you will feel my wrath!"

"I….die….free!" Bra'tac managed to utter through the blinding agony. Just then an alarm rang out through the _pel'tak_. Klorel turned and looked at the screen to see the construct turn on its vertical axis relative to their plane of reference, its circular dish a poisonous eye staring the parasite straight into its soul. He disengaged his hand device just as O'Neill and SG-1 poured into the _pel'tak_ and slaughtered the Jaffa that dared to stand against them. Teal'c subdued Klorel just as Apophis managed to enter the _pel'tak_.

"Kree tal, Jaffa!" intoned the leader of the Serpent Guards as he saw his own son being held hostage, waving them off with a gesture. He witnessed Bra'tac attempting to leave with SG-1 and their prisoner, and he barked at the old Jaffa. "Bra'tac! How dare you betray me?!"

Bra'tac's answer was simple. "I have spent 133 years worshiping false gods – no more. Besides, there is a new power among the Tau'ri. If you don't believe me, look out there," he said, tilting his head at the viewscreen, at the image of the spherical construct beyond.

"What's he talking about, Teal—" Jack asked as he followed the Jaffa Master's gaze. The Jaffa and their Goa'uld masters would not have any inkling of what they had seen just beyond the moon's orbit, but to O'Neill and the rest of SG-1 it was instantly recognizable. "Oh, fuck me…."

Apophis was not amused by O'Neill's anatomical suggestion. To Bra'tac's second, who was still loyal to his gods, he shouted, "LAUNCH GLIDERS!"

"You cannot prevail against _that_, Apophis," said Teal'c with an uncharacteristic display of glee. "That is the Death Star, and now the Goa'uld will be brought down from their high places among the stars. When it fires its primary weapon, this ship and the one beside it will be vaporized instantly. You and the other System Lords have lost."

**Sunnydale**

The _Lambda_-class shuttle streaked down to the coordinates supplied by a quick download of the town map. Xander had zeroed in on the Rosenberg house as soon as he could find it on the display, and he altered his course to ride on a tight beam down to the road just in front of the house, turning the shuttle at the last possible seconds before making touchdown so the shuttle's ramp faced the house. Upon opening the ramp, Xander stepped out with Dawn, Giles and Cordelia, and then he took his comlink from his belt and switched it on.

"Harris to Vigilant Watcher, do you read?"

"Watcher here. You might want to make this quick, I just picked up two signals close aboard, they're on the other side of the Moon from this position. What do you wish me to do?"

"Nothing yet, Buffy," Xander replied. "Turn the station so the superlaser dish points at them, but do nothing else until and unless I say. How are your scans of the town coming?"

After a moment, Buffy's voice came back over the link. "I'm making progress, but it's still slow going; if I could master this alphabet and this console at once I would have better results for you. But from what it looks like, you're right where you need to be, so make haste and get Willow and anyone else aboard and get them up here so we can deal with more immediate concerns."

"Just as I thought. Wills is probably home by now, so it'll be good timing. I just hope she managed to find the kid I wounded and get him here too. Harris out." After clicking off his comlink, Xander turned to Giles and, when Giles nodded, nodded back and said to the assembled party, "Let's go."

**The Rosenberg Residence**

Kit had come by later to check on Carlos and see how he was. She was confused and more than alarmed at the condition of his leg when she saw what had happened, and when she asked Willow what had happened, Willow was at a loss to explain. To date, Kit and Carlos had not known about magicks, the supernatural, nor the Scoobies' ongoing war against the darkness, so Willow knew that the phrase "blaster wound" simply would not do for an explanation.

She was still in the middle of mulling over an acceptable response when all of a sudden the living room was flooded with brilliant white light. She had just enough time to shield her eyes from the intense illumination when there was a knock at the door.

"Willow! Willow, are you there? It's me, Xander!" came an all-too-familiar voice.

_Not Tarkin?_ she wondered at once in amazement. She had not seen Xander nor Cordelia or Dawn since the spell broke, but seeing as the Death Star was still in orbit over Sunnydale, she had to assume that Xander's personality could have been completely subsumed by that of the Imperial Grand Moff. To hear Xander's voice and confirmation that indeed, it was Xander, was a welcome relief.

"Xander?" Willow rushed to the door and opened it, and there in standard Imperial officer uniforms were the other Scoobies minus Buffy. "Those aren't costumes, are they?" she asked at once.

"No they aren't," admitted Xander. "You find that kid that got wounded?"

"He's right here. Carlos?" she called over her shoulder.

Before he could answer, though, Xander interjected, "There's no time; get him on his feet and let's get him on the shuttle. I'll explain on the way to the station."

"Whoa, wait a sec!" Kit retorted as Xander made his way in to help. "What's going on here? What's this about a shuttle and a station?"

"She doesn't know?" asked Xander almost in disbelief, then quickly dismissed the thought. "Never mind, she soon will." Turning to Kit he ordered, "You and Willow get him up and out of the house, it's time to go."

"Hey!" Kit protested, "since when did you get to be in charge here?"

Xander looked at Kit in annoyance and said, "Since we ran out of time to argue about it! Now help Willow get your buddy on his feet, we're gonna get him someplace where we don't have to explain to Sunnydale General Hospital how he got that big hole in his leg! That good enough for you?!"

"Yeah, alright," conceded Kit, "but you owe us an explanation, Mr. Harris," she said as Willow stepped over, and then they each took an arm over their shoulders and hefted Carlos onto his feet. Xander then led the way onto the porch, where Kit and Carlos saw something they'd swear to the end of their days they never thought was possible until this night.

"What the cheese sticks is that?" said Carlos, his voice less hoarse now from having rested since tonight's ordeal.

Kit's expression registered a range of emotions from confusion, to disbelief, to amazement as she added, "Yeah, that looks like an Imperial Shuttle from _Star Wars_."

"That's right, campers, that is exactly what that is, and that's what we're riding out of here; now get on board!" Xander just said. They complied without a word, with the lone exception of Carlos, who whispered to himself, "Fuckin' cool…."

Willow, for her part, was filled with confusion and worry as the thought kept flitting through her mind, _This was just supposed to be a regular Halloween night…"_ October the 31st would never be the same for any of them again.

**Imperial Shuttle over Sunnydale**

"I thought when we got our wounded we would head straight back to the Watcher, Xander. Why are we then making for the art gallery?"

Xander answered Giles' question thusly: "When I picked up Buffy, Dawn and Willow for trick-or-treater escort duty as required on pain of expulsion by our favorite homunculus Snyder, Joyce" and he mentioned the name with a sudden, fleeting wish that she would turn her affections to him, if only for a brief moment, "had indicated that she was due at the Mayor's office. Since the Death Star, as everyone else still assumes it is, appeared tonight and became a physical reality, the Mayor's office would have declared a state of emergency, and all non-essential personnel would have been required to leave and go about their own business. Joyce should then be at the art gallery, since she's not home at the moment."

"Well reasoned, Xander. I do believe the Moff's influence has improved your manners as well as your deductive skills…though we should still contact Buffy and inform her that we shall be bringing her mother on board the station as well as Carlos and Kit."

"That's no surprise there, Rupert," Xander replied, which got a raised eyebrow from Giles at the use of his given name, "given that Buffy was enchanted by the spell and her mother will doubtless wonder where she is by now. We can attend to two mission priorities with but one stroke." He looked down at the instrument panel of the pilot's console and reported, "We're approaching the museum, Giles. I'm going to set us down in front, since everyone's seen the battle station anyway. No sense hiding what everyone already knows is there, yes?"

"I'm going to open a channel to the Watcher so you can tell her before we land. Use your comlink to talk to her; she'll want to be able to tell her mother personally what's going on. Here she is…"

Buffy's voice then appeared over the 'link. "Xander, Giles? You'd better get done and back up here within ten minutes. I just got another voice message from Hammond. He says they're tracking two signals since they first picked them up around the orbit of Saturn, and they're worried that they might be some sort of hostile alien species coming to take us over. They're also concerned about a squad of theirs that went missing about a day or so ago, and they want to know if we've found any traces of them."

"Thanks, Buffy. Please tell the General that we'll let him know anything we find about those two contacts, and do pass along whatever you find to me as well. On another note, we're soon be landing at the museum and we'll be picking up your mom to bring her aboard the station."

"You are?" Xander nodded his assent as he responded in the affirmative. "Oh, I had hoped you would; I so long to see her and tell her everything that's been happening. The present circumstances and my ongoing absence have doubtless left her in a worrisome mood."

"More and more aristocratic by the hour, Buffy. Is this the same Buffy I knew before the spell?" commented Xander.

"I fear not; more and more of the Lady Elizabeth's manners and speech have intertwined themselves into my thought patterns. I fear I shall no longer be the Southern Californian girl who used to quip before a good dusting."

"Regardless, Buffster, when we land, you'll be explaining all this to your mom in person over my comlink. Will that work, or shall I bring her onto the Overbridge and have you explain it to her there?"

"The point is conceded, Xander. I shall speak to her over your comlink, then. When do you land?"

Xander looked at his panel and said, "Within seconds, prepare yourself."

"Be quick, Xander; I don't have time to stall the General, and he will want answers soon."  
Alright, then, Xander mused as the shuttle touched down in front of the museum,let's make this happen…

**Sunnydale Museum of Art**

Joyce looked around at the patrons that had come to view the newest display. None knew what it was as yet, but there was something of a supernatural theme to it, as most art that found its way to Sunnydale usually did. She had wondered sometimes as to the meaning of it all, but her thoughts were presently occupied by the constant murmuring of the museum patrons about the sudden appearance in the night sky of what looked like the very same Death Star of the Star Wars films, and how close it was to the planet. So very close, in fact, that it had caused rumblings in the Earth almost instantly upon its appearance, before it unexplainably moved far enough away from the planet to cause the rumblings to stop. And suddenly she worried for her daughter. Buffy had been out there escorting young trick-or-treaters from Sunnydale Elementary School when the earthquake started, and there had not been word of her since then.

She was worried, so very worried for her baby girls, Buffy and Dawn. Were they victims? Had they run afoul of a crumbling building or a downed power line? Or worse, had Buffy had a sudden mental relapse? Joyce knew in her heart of hearts that Buffy was a strong, resourceful girl, and she had managed her way through much since she and Hank had managed themselves to release her from Los Angeles County Hospital's psych ward, before the divorce and Hank's subsequent disappearance. It still did not prevent her from worrying for her daughter 's safety whenever an earthquake occurred. Buffy had always had a hidden sort of strength that couldn't be explained, but she was still Joyce's daughter.

And mothers always worried for their daughters.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden bright light that suffused the entire wing. An instant later the light vanished, to be replaced by steam coming into the building from immediately outside. Joyce's senses went into overdrive when she regarded the source of the steam. It should not have been possible, but Joyce could have sworn she had seen Xander and that librarian, Rupert Giles, emerge from the Imperial Shuttle that had landed in the wash of light and make their way into the museum. Xander was speaking to someone on some sort of device in his hand, but what was the more unusual were the Imperial uniforms the two of them wore as though they were tailored specifically for them.

In the next instant, Joyce beheld Xander looking around the gallery just before his eyes locked onto hers. A wide, puppydog smile plastered itself onto his face upon seeing her, the expression of a young man taken at once with an older woman that he had admired almost like a second mother. What was the word for such a man? She hadn't known, but she had imagined if the roles were reversed, and it were she who was enamoured with him, that she would be referred to as a "cougar", one of those wealthy women who had an eye for younger men, for reasons that she refused to entertain at the moment. Xander strode directly toward her, with Mr. Giles in tow, still speaking to whoever was on the other end of the communication device. He had approached within three feet or so of her when the voice on the other end of the…comlink, she now remembered it being called in the films…became clear.

"Here she is," said Xander, and then he handed the comlink to her, saying to Joyce, "Hello, Ms. Summers…someone wants to talk to you."

"H-Hello?" said Joyce hesitantly.

"Mother? Is that you?" replied a voice that filled her heart with relief. "Are you alright?"

Joyce was confused. Buffy had always called her "Mom", never "Mommy" or "Mother"; this was an unusual voice for her, it was too cultured, too refined to be her daughter.

"Yes, I'm alright, Buffy, but where are you and Dawn, and why aren't you at home?"

There was a sudden brief pause, and then Buffy answered, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Mother. Have you looked in the sky lately? What's there now besides the moon?"

"Buffy?" Joyce asked slowly, fearful of her daughter's answer, "are you telling me that somehow you're in _space_? On board that _thing_?!"

Buffy's reply was simple and direct. "Yes, Mother, and I need you to come up here to me. I can't explain until you get here; just know that I need to get you off the planet as soon as possible, and I shall explain everything when you arrive. Now please follow Xander and board the shuttle that's waiting to take you up here. Don't delay, Mother, please go!"

"Please, Ms. Summers," said Xander then, "we have to go now."

"Joyce, please, Xander and Buffy are right, it's time to go," said Rupert at last. His face was that of one who was worried for a contemporary as well as a dear friend, all but pleading with her to heed her daughter's words.

_If Buffy, Xander, and Rupert are all three worried equally about this, then I need to find out what's really going on here…_

Suddenly Joyce looked around and regarded the museum patrons, more than half of whom were regarding the spectacle before them, and she decided that if something was going on and her daughter was genuinely worried for her mother's safety, then she should humor her and go with her friends, at least until she found out the truth.

If this was somehow affecting her daughters, then Heaven help those who would stand between a child and her enraged mother…

She turned to the patrons and spoke then, "My apologies, everyone. I know that you were expecting a grand event with the unveiling of the museum's latest collection, but I have to leave now and attend to a family emergency. I trust you all know the way around, and the museum staff will be more than happy to answer your questions and settle things in a satisfactory manner. Any buyers who wish to make a selection can speak with my assistant and make any arrangements you need. Thank you and goodbye."

She turned and left the museum with her uniform-clad friends amid more murmuring and consternation than she had ever had the misfortune to hear. To Xander and Giles, she said coldly, "This had better be good or heads will roll for this…"


	8. Fear and Wonder, and a Rescue Plan

Fear and Wonder, and a Rescue Plan...

_Disclaimer - See first chapter_

**Stargate Command**

"Yes, Mr. President, that's all we know so far. The Death Star, for lack of a better term, is still holding steady just on the other side of the Moon and has done nothing but rotate…. Yes, sir, I'm glad that thing isn't pointed our way anymore too. …No, sir, we're still tracking those two signals since Hubble picked them up. We're not sure what they are, but all reports indicate that they are alien in origin…No sir, I think that would be highly inadvisable, they could turn that thing back around and light us up the instant we tried to take the battle station by force, negotiation is our best and possibly our only option….Well, as I'm sure you're aware, Mr. President, I don't give an armadillo's ass what the good Senator thinks; he can take his high-minded notions and shove them someplace where the sun don't shine! Thank you, sir, Stargate Command out."

Hammond put the red phone back on its cradle and let out a loud sigh of relief. Samuels looked at the general with some degree of confusion and nigh-disappointment, waiting for the Texan to acknowledge his presence. At length Hammond looked up at him.

"I just had a conversation with the President that should interest you, Colonel Samuels. He has decided that we will not attempt to take control of the Death Star by force, per my advisement, and he has also decided that your supernukes will instead be retargeted onto the two alien contacts that seem to be on approach to Earth. If they are Goa'uld, then we will see just how powerful they are and whether or not your Goa'uld busters can do the job you say they can do."

Samuels was nonplussed. "The Pentagon maintains, sir, that the Death Star should remain a top-priority threat and that we should treat it as such unless we somehow can take control of the battle station. The Joint Chiefs have also agreed that you should begin evacuating all relevant personnel to the Alpha Site via the Stargate in case our attempt to hold back the Goa'uld and the Death Star fails."

"Have you considered a career in ventriloquism, Colonel?" Hammond suddenly asked, his Texas twang becoming more pronounced with his irritation with Samuels.

"No, sir, why do you ask?"

"Cause you sound like a dummy! There is not one thought in that statement you just made that is your own assessment of the situation; I might even postulate that you are repeating the Joint Chiefs' response to the situation, maybe even verbatim from how it sounds. You are supposed to be their liaison to this command, not their parrot. Now liaise!"

Samuels was visibly humbled by that clear assessment from the General, and he fought the urge to let his head drop in embarrassment. As it was, though, he was still unable to keep from blushing bright red at that. He struggled for an acceptable response.

At length, he said, "Sir, The Secretary of Defense feels that we should take any and all steps to gain advantage in this crisis, including the possibility of taking control of the station either by persuasion or by force. They want us to try to use the Death Star against the Goa'uld, if indeed that is who is coming our way."

"Go on," pressed Hammond.

"Just before I got off the phone with the Joint Chiefs, there was a conversation with Senator Kinsey personally…"

"Now why does that not surprise me?" said Hammond in a huff.

"I understand, sir. Given the Senator's message, he clearly wishes to gain some political leverage from this encounter, and he indicated that in no uncertain terms I was to convey to you the Senate's intentions to procure the Death Star as purely a US defense asset. Senator Kinsey had met in a closed session with the Senate Armed Services Committee, and when it was over he gave me the message to give to you. He also mentioned something about 'dire consequences' if the SGC failed to comply, something to do with cutting off all funding for this operation."

"So basically we take over the Death Star and paint a US flag on it, or the SGC goes bankrupt. Is that the Senator's message, in a nutshell, Colonel Samuels?"

"It is, sir. I wish it wasn't, but I don't have the rank for that."

The conversation was interrupted by an announcement over the PA. "General Hammond to the control room, please. We have a visual on the two alien contacts…"

The two Air Force officers looked at each other then, and each of them could sense the change in the atmosphere, as though the very air had become a battery to power the Stargate. As one they stood and left the Commanding General's office and went next door to the Gate Control Room.

There people and officers scurried to and fro in a nervous buzz. Hammond strode through the lake of people and stood directly next to MSgt Harriman's console. "What do we have, Master Sergeant?"

"General Hammond, Colonel Samuels, a NASA satellite picked this up ten minutes ago near the current location of the Death Star. The image had been magnified and enhanced, but basically…" Harriman then punched up a display of the latest telemetry from that feed, and the image in question appeared on the central monitor.

Two ships were present in the blackness, eclipsing the stars beyond. An outline appeared around them to better delineate their shapes. The outlines each then became a wire-frame model of each alien vessel, describing one shape within another.

The outer shape was roughly ovoid, flat, and clearly designed for space travel, with viewports and access panels inscribing every surface of the vessel, from the recessed, protected viewports to the dark gray outer hull which design was clearly intended to weather the extreme stresses of interstellar travel.

The shape in the center of the ovoid, gleaming like a sinister jewel reflecting the starlight, was a pyramid.

"Summon the Alpha Site teams to the Gate Room," Hammond said, causing everyone to look his way in surprise and fear. "It's time to give them the go."

"Yes, sir," said Harriman, who then began punching in codes to relay Hammond's order.

Just then a telltale flashed on Harriman's console. He punched up the file and read the latest message. "General, another message from NASA; they're tracking a large number of smaller contacts emerging from the two alien vessels, moving toward the Death Star."

"Jaffa Death Gliders, if the reports are accurate," said Samuels, who had read those reports for himself as part of his briefing as liaison officer to the SGC. "I thought they only operated in atmosphere."

"Apparently we were wrong, Colonel," said Hammond. "Those contacts are spreading out in some sort of aggressive reconnaissance posture, attempting to get an assessment of the Death Star's capabilities."

"How can you tell that?" said Samuels.

"And you call yourself an Air Force officer…" said Hammond in disdain with a look of disgust in his eyes for the Pentagon liaison officer. Apparently, in Hammond's eye that was all Samuels was good for, to be the Pentagon's, or perhaps Kinsey's, mouthpiece or puppet. "They're spreading out in a way that allows each individual craft to get a complete visual readout of a preselected sector of the station's surface. You can see that from the equal space between each Glider. Now one might consider that they would do that to interlock fields of fire, but in space it doesn't quite work that way. If the Death Star has its full complement of fighters, by now they would have deployed them against the Gliders as a precaution and to assess their intentions. If a fight were to break out, though, then whatever plane of reference the Goa'uld have set for themselves would become much more important if the Gliders were to stand any chance against a thousand TIEs."

"_If_ the Death Star doesn't decide to ally with the Goa'uld against us…" the ever pessimistic Samuels interjected.

"Wrong again, Samuels. From their response to our initial voice message, I think their mission here is peaceful. From their actions so far, we have no proof that their mission here is hostile, and if there were deception on their part, don't you think we'd have uncovered it in their response by now? They even sent down a shuttle to the surface in the town of Sunnydale._One_ shuttle, Colonel. They've landed no troops, deployed no surveillance devices, and they've done nothing else since that shuttle came down. So far as we know, they've been honest up to now, and we've seen no indicators that they should behave otherwise."

Harriman then cut in. "Update from NASA; now tracking a single contact leaving the planet for the Death Star station, looks like a shuttlecraft, _Lambda_ class. "

General Hammond then turned to Harriman and said, "Send a message to the Vigilant Watcher." At the confused expressions of both Samuels and Harriman, he replied, "That's what they're calling the Death Star, don't ask me why right now…" Then he turned his attention back to Harriman and said, "Please inform us as to your intentions with the alien craft now moving in your direction. If they decide to open fire, do you intend to disable or destroy them? Also can your scanners pick up life signs on unknown craft and differentiate between human and other? When we arrive, we would like the opportunity to examine any captured craft you may possess after engagement. Message ends, SGC out."

Harriman nodded his head and made ready to send the message he had typed almost at the same time that Hammond had been speaking it. "Yes sir, encoding now…"

"Negative, Master Sergeant, send it in the clear."

"Sir?" Harriman was understandably confused; US military procedure precluded the transmission of un-encoded messages under any circumstances as a matter of OPSEC.

"You heard the order, Master Sergeant; in the clear."

"Yes, sir; sending now…"

The general then looked at Colonel Samuels and said, "Now we wait and see how this plays out…"

********

**Vigilant Watcher Overbridge**

Buffy stood watch at Tactical; the General's message in no uncertain terms indicated that the alien presence might possibly be hostile and that they wanted the Watcher to help out. Both larger craft had surged forth a large number of smaller two-man ships, possibly some sort of fighter craft, and even now they were moving closer to the station. So far, the fighters had not opened fire, but that was not to say that they wouldn't, or that the motherships behind them wouldn't do the same thing. At the same time, it wouldn't do them any good to pull the trigger before they knew any more about them. That was the thing with unknowns; one had to be prepared for anything and nothing at the same time. It was frustrating.

She went over her console once again, trying to familiarize herself with the various defense systems and types of dedicated weapons platforms that were emplaced on the battle station. So far, the database in the central computer core had told her that this station had been built with more than five thousand heavy turbolaser batteries, and an equal number of standard turbolasers for engaging starfighters, around two thousand, five hundred ion cannons and less than a thousand tractor beam emplacements. That did not include the hundreds upon hundreds of missile batteries and torpedo emplacements nor the hundreds of fighter bays that encompassed the equatorial zone of the battle station. The formation of fighters seemed a cloud of gnats compared to the awesome, terrible might of Vigilant Watcher.

A tone sounded on her console, directing her to see to the communications panel in the crew pit. It took her two seconds at Slayer speed to reach the comm panel and read the notification compelling her to open a channel to Xander on the inbound shuttle. They had just picked up her mother and were on their way back to the station when she received the message from General Hammond requesting their aid. Buffy then pressed a short sequence of keys and made the connection with Xander's shuttle comm.

"Watcher to Harris, do you read?"

Xander's voice came back on the comm, "Harris here, whatcha got, Watcher?"

"Can you get up here swiftly, please? I just received another voice message from General Hammond; he wants help with the two unknown contacts, which according to Tactical just released a number of smaller two-man craft, possibly fighters."

"What are they doing right now, Buffy?" If Xander was channeling Tarkin in any way, then doubtless he would want to know if they were planning on attacking his battle station.

"Well, they appear to be spread out in some sort of screen, covering as much space as they can around the station…"

"A reconnaissance screen. We'll be up there as quickly as we can; I'm pouring as much power into the sublights as I can, so give us about…five minutes to board and another five to get up to the bridge, okay? In the meantime, spin up all heavy turbolasers and ion cannons in your front hemisphere and stand by for further orders."

"Yes, I was going to say something about that as well. It seems Hammond wants us to try and scan for lifeforms on the two larger contacts and identify them. I think they want to find out if their missing squad is on one of those motherships," replied Buffy.

"Do it, then," came back Xander. "We don't want to harm anyone if we can help it. Scan everything and see if you can send the info down to Hammond in a text file or if you have to go with voice."

Buffy was understandably confused, as the entirety of her experience with the Watcher's shipboard sensor systems was nil. "Fascinating…how am I supposed to do that?"

"Hmmm…" growled Xander, his voice sounding like he would have to set aside some time for his fellow Scoobies to familiarize themselves with every aspect of the battle station's systems. "Never mind trying to do it right now. Wait till we get up there with you, and I'll handle it myself. Just tell me if anyone starts shooting, okay?"

"Understood, Xander. I shall keep you informed…Vigilant Watcher out."

Buffy then turned to the main tactical display at the front of the Overbridge and regarded the fighter screen with a degree of stoic curiosity. During her conversation with Xander, the fighters had closed their distance from the station to about half now of what it had been since she last saw them. They were still moving slowly, cautiously. "What are you people playing at?" she whispered aloud.

**_Lambda_****-class shuttle en route to Vigilant Watcher**

As the shuttle closed the distance between it and the enormous spherical construct in the night sky, Joyce and the others couldn't help but feel a stirring of fear. If this was some sort of hallucination, then somebody had found some way to induce the same hallucination in groups of individuals, which should not be possible due to the diversity of human minds; as there were no two human minds that were identical, there could be no such thing as a shared hallucination. This led Joyce to believe that the battle station that loomed ever closer as they flew was exactly what it looked like.

It was real. And quite soon the vast expanse of the station's surface had eclipsed the starscape beyond, depriving all aboard the shuttle of the illusion of depth perception and compelling Xander, who was piloting the thing, to go to IFR, or Instrument Flight Rules to gauge his distance from the station the rest of the way.

Carlos looked out the side of the shuttle's transparisteel canopy, at the horizon of the Death Star station and the stars beyond, which sight soon filled him with wonder and fear beyond comparison. The looming battle station was so massive, so vast that it couldn't possibly have been built here by human hands. There simply weren't enough raw materials on the planet to build something of this unimaginable size. As for the energy requirements to power something that was meant to shatter a planet with a single shot, such a thing must surely not be possible! Carlos could not even begin to imagine the physics involved in producing hypermatter, if the stories bore out, let alone harnessing such incredible power as what would be produced from a matter-hypermatter reaction. The whole thing was simply mind-staggering, and he looked to Kit for a possible way out of this…this anxiety-inducing moment, for the closer the shuttle approached the station, the more Carlos knew the feeling that the Death Star would swallow them whole and ingest them. The only answer in Kit's eyes reflected his own growing terror and confusion, his own sentiments reflected back at him.

Willow, for her part, felt the whole weight of the moment press itself upon her chest as a palpable tension that soon blended with the euphoria of setting foot on the infamous battle station that inspired so much horror and wonder in the minds of moviegoers planetwide. She knew from the memory of possession by her ghostly self that this was as real to her as her own flesh was real to her. She felt the metal of the shuttle; it was real. She saw the telltales in the cockpit displays, and her eyes told her they were real, just as the sounds of the air recirculators in the shuttle told her they were real. Her mind connected all these senses with the memory of Xander's possession by Moff Tarkin, and it told her that all this was real. Recognizing and accepting the reality of her current circumstances increased her own growing wonder and fear, as if the whole thing could have not inspired so much as an hallucination.

This.

Was.

All.

REAL.

It was physical, enthralling the senses as nothing else real ever could.

A passing glimmer just off the horizon of the massive station caught her eye, drawing her instantly from her wonder and alerting her to a new set of circumstances, for if this battle station and the shuttle they rode ever closer to its unimaginable bulk was real, then so too were the dozens of small fighter craft that had suddenly entered the limit of her visual acuity. Willow then turned to Xander in the cockpit and communicated thus her concerns.

"Xander, we've got company."

From his pilot's console at the helm, Xander turned his eyes to meet the new arrivals to the Sol System.

"I see them, Wills, looks like fighters of some sort in a recon screen, Buffy told me they were here. We're just waiting to see what they do, and so far they haven't done anything."

"Yeah, I know, Xan, and that's what's bothering me. It's like they're waiting for something; whatever it is, it's not going to be good for us."

Xander looked at the formation of alien craft and then looked at the Death Star, judging the distance between them and his battle station to answer a question. "We're still at optimum range for turbolasers. They won't even scratch the paint job, let alone cause us any serious harm." He looked at his instruments again. "Hold on, gotta start docking procedures. Watcher, this is Shuttle 1427 on final approach?"

Buffy's voice came over the comm. "1427, this is Watcher, I have you at twenty kilometers out, cut engines and stand by for tractor beam lock on."

Xander's voice conveyed his final relief at coming back home. "1427 confirms, sublights powering down." The steady drone of the engines that heretofore no one had noticed now wound itself down to nothingness, and now only momentum held their present course in the weightless void. That sensation only lasted a moment until a new sensation made its presence felt, and now the shuttle's passengers felt themselves pulled inexorably toward the station and its waiting hangars in a trench just near the north arc of the superlaser dish. Only when the shuttle had closed to within ten kilometers of the hangar did it become visible, and everyone wondered anew at the unimaginable mass of the construct they were to board. A vast rectangular bay soon became visible at about five kilometers' distance, and as they shuttle drew nearer its passengers began to notice the myriad features within. Massive conduits and fluid hoses appeared to them as fine hairs or strands of pasta, and overhead gantries and gangways looked like Lego blocks from a klick and a half out. Joyce watched in awe as the shuttle rotated under the power of the tractor beam to face the open hangar, and as the outer hull of the station finally blocked out the view of the surrounding space, she marveled at the size of the hangar bay itself, which seemed to quite easily hold at least ten times the volume of her art gallery and the adjacent museum with room to spare, and this was one of the smaller bays. She could not imagine the size of the ones that according to the films must have held the fighters. She couldn't hope to see those anytime soon at any rate, as they were located in the equatorial trench.

The shuttle finally passed through the magnetic containment field and into the atmosphere of the hangar, and it landed on the deck with a feather's touch. No one had felt even the tiniest jarring as the craft made touchdown, and their amazement at the sensation was superlative. The passengers were so enthralled that they had to hear Xander shout three times for them to pay him attention. Startled, they turned finally to the de facto station commander.

"If we are all done making goo goo eyes at everything, I'd like to direct everyone to the coreward hallway, when you pass the double doors, make a right and take the first lift down two decks to the overbridge access deck, and then make your way to the bridge conference room. Okay?" Nodding heads conveyed everyone's agreement. "Good. I have some business on the overbridge itself, after which I'll join you presently. Giles, Cordelia, please come with me…"

**Overbridge**

Buffy looked over the scanning controls at the adjacent console to the communications station in confusion. She had no idea how to use the instruments shown there; hand weapons were her specialty, not science stuff. She was only glad she was able to figure out how to operate the tractor beam controls that had helped to guide Xander's shuttle to the overbridge hangar bay and to begin the automated landing sequence. She was more than grateful at seeing the doors part to reveal Xander, Dawn, Giles and Cordelia, and at last she could get a grip on the problem of the aliens just outboard.

She approached and curtseyed to Xander when she made her report, a foolish thing to do given the circumstances, but that part of her that was Lady Elizabeth demanded proper courtesy, and since she and the Lady were one and the same now, she felt unashamed in doing so.

"Xander, the alien formation is holding steady at five thousand kilometers from the hull, and there have been no indications of their intentions as yet. Do you wish now to begin scanning them?"

Xander, for his part, had not had the time nor the inclination given more pressing concerns to tell Buffy that she should go find some more appropriate clothes to wear, and the Victorian thing was so out of style, though he admitted a passing fancy that sometime in the near future that it could come back as something of a retro fashion, but now was not the time to be distracted by past fashions.

"Thank you, Buffy, I'll certainly do that; in the meantime, might I suggest that you go find some more appropriate attire for this station? Victorian vogue and the Death Star so do not go together, I'm sorry…" Xander replied with a shake of his head, regretting that now he would no longer have the opportunity to admire said vogue henceforth.

Buffy made a face and emitted a grunt of disapproval before she admitted, "While I deplore the idea of wearing one of those gray uniforms as you suggest, I'll concede that it would be more proper than wearing this _restrictive_ garment here on your command bridge." She curtseyed once more before disappearing through the bridge doors.

Xander moved to the scanning console and started a passive scan of the local space, which he had set to autoupdate every thirty minutes, and then he began scanning each of the craft that the system had noticed as well as the pilots within. The power signatures of the craft themselves, as Xander had figured, were of an unknown type, but what interested him were the two motherships further out that showed the same signature, just larger and more prominent. From the message that they had received from the SGC, Xander had assumed that these craft were hostile, so there was no longer any sense in acting diplomatically. He changed the scan profile from passive to active and sat back to wait, ruminating as he did so.

A thought suddenly occurred to him. There was something about those energy signatures that was familiar to him, something he'd run across that wasn't one of Tarkin's memories. That left only one possibility.

When he and Giles had localized the source of the transmission from the Air Force, he'd identified the closest military installation as the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. But he knew an officer academy wouldn't be the most likely spot for concealing whatever had such an energy signature as what they had found. Whatever it was, it had been deep underground, perhaps even under one of the mountains. And then it had hit him like a blaster bolt to the chest; there was a military installation in Colorado that didn't turn out newly minted officers. The nature of that complex's activities was buried under a shroud of secrecy so thick, its classification so high, that no one outside the military ever knew of its existence other than a location and an acronym.

Cheyenne Mountain, it was called. And the base was known as the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.

Xander then leaned over the scanning console again, bringing up the sensor logs and cross-referencing with the current sensor readouts on the alien craft now shadowing his battle station. The results of the cross-reference alarmed him and gave him cause for concern.  
"Giles?" Xander called out.

The British Watcher stepped over to Xander in the crew pit and stopped just over the young man's shoulder. "What is it?"

"You'll recall that when we were trying to pinpoint the source of Hammond's original transmission, we detected a unique energy signature?" When the Watcher nodded Xander continued. "Well, I just cross checked the signatures on each of those big motherships out there with the one for the object buried under that mountain. Something about those vessels struck me as familiar, and I followed up on it. As it turns out, the power signatures from each of the alien vessels were almost an exact match with the power signature of the object buried under Cheyenne Mountain."

"The NORAD facility?"

"That's the one. It's my guess, G-man, that whatever that is down there, this SGC that the good General keeps referring to really doesn't want these beings out here to get their hands on it." Just when he said that, though, a telltale started flashing on the scanning console indicating that the scan was complete. Xander looked it over. "Got something on the life form scan, but it's really weird, Giles."

"Weird as in how?"

Xander squinted as he read the entirety of the scan report, and then he keyed in a holographic layout of the surrounding space, Every dot was accompanied by a brief readout in Aurebesh. "Well, unless I miss my guess, Giles, they're human, but" and here he pointed at one of the lifeforms on the nearest mothership, "there's something else, something within them. I can't say with any assurances, but I'd say they're more like parasitic organisms in control of the host bodies. There are a few life forms on board one of those ships that register as 100% human, though. I'll take a closer look, but…"

"I believe I can save you the trouble, there, Xander," interjected Giles, "as I'd postulate that this is Hammond's missing squad. Call it an old Watcher's instinct," he finished when Xander looked at him askance.

They locked eyes for a moment before Xander proposed, "A rescue mission?"

"We should inform the General," Giles confirmed. "There is one stipulation, however, as to my understanding none of us here aboard has the knowledge or the expertise to perform such a hazardous operation. This is best left to those that have a working knowledge of these aliens and their technology."

Xander shook his head slowly. Only a few hours' possession by one of the most notoriously ruthless Imperial governors in Star Wars history had given him all the knowledge and lifetime experience of the Grand Moff himself. And there had been several aboard who had dressed as Stormtroopers and had been possessed by the characters of those costumes; logic dictated that they also would have experienced a rapid download of those characters' life experiences and personalities.

"Giles. Ooohhhh, G-Man, I have to disagree with you there; you see, we do have several on board that have exactly the expertise we require for this to work, and I believe they're guarding Ethan Rayne right now. We get Buffy and several others back up here, Buffy starts launching TIE drones and opening up on the motherships with the nearest ion batteries. Those things must have some sort of deflector shields, so ion blasts should bring down those shields. Once they're down, a shuttle on standby with the Stormtroopers aboard will board whichever ship has Hammond's missing squad, they snatch and grab and get out of there before the aliens have a chance to get their shields back up, then we blast them some more with ions and voila! Captured vessel for our SGC!"

Giles nodded his head slowly. There had to be a chance that this would work, and Xander's plan as he outlined it was the best one they had. The Air Force could do nothing from the planet surface as they were further away and had not the technology to slow the aliens down, let alone defeat them. It was up to the Vigilant Watcher and her crew to do the job, as they were here with the aliens.

At length he agreed, "Yes, your plan is sound, and it's not only the best one we have, it's the only shot we have to take. I only have one thing to ask…"

"What's that, Giles?"

"You must agree to never again in your lifespan refer to me by that infernal nickname, else I shall say not one word to our beloved General Hammond, nor his SGC, whatever that stands for. Now, Xander, do we have an accord?"

Xander was slightly crestfallen at this requirement, but he felt it was one he could live with. He had to take a shot, though, since to Xander, formalities among friends were something he could do without. "Very well, we do. May I call you Rupert instead?" he finished with something resembling a hopeful grin.

Giles, at his wit's end, merely sighed in defeat and exasperation. "Never on school grounds or in a professional setting, Moff Harris," he conceded.

Xander bowed deeply in a gesture that, were he facing the nobility of Britain or Eriadu, or even Emperor Palpatine himself, Heaven forbid, would resemble grateful supplication. "Rupert, thy will be done."

Giles took off his glasses and began to polish them furiously. At length, once he had composed himself once more, he replaced them on the bridge of his nose and spoke again. "Then bring in the others and alert General Hammond; it is nigh time to brief them on your daring rescue plan."


	9. Into the Fire, Part One

Into the Fire, Part One

_Disclaimer - Wish though I might, I still do not and likely never shall, save with overly large sums of money that I shall never see, own these characters or the various franchises that comprise this story. BTVS is the property of Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy, Star Wars is owned by Lucasfilm/Disney, and Stargate SG1 is owned by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner. I am merely playing in their respective sandboxes for the interim..._

_A/N - Love the reviews I have gotten on this thing so far. They have been very constructive and informative, so it goes without saying that I would never have written this much without the constant stream of input from you, the readers, Force be with you all._

**Detention Block AA23, Vigilant Watcher**

They had thought it would be so cool to go as Stormtroopers this year. Warren, as usual, persuaded Andrew and Jonathan to do the same thing; after all, Stormtroopers never fought alone. They were legion, and they were the Empire's finest.

Now they would have gladly passed that horrible shop on the other side of the street had they had the chance. The massive download of the basic stormtrooper mental template plus tactics, training, and combat experience was more than enough to convince them of that. They had to play out a first person perspective of shooting and killing a fellow human being, hearing the screams of the dead and dying. Each of the three geeks had had to feel firsthand the genetically programmed intensely fanatical loyalty to the Emperor they were created to serve. Each of them had had to feel the callous brutality with which the Stormtroopers dealt with the citizenry of the Empire. Each of them knew now that they were never again the same as they once were. And now here they were, on the actual Death Star itself, guarding the man who was solely responsible for all this. It would have been so cool were it not for that very reason that all of this had come so suddenly into being. Andrew didn't know whether to congratulate him or shoot him, where Warren saw opportunity and Jonathan regarded the chaos mage with what amounted to now as a deeply rooted loathing of the man.

They had removed their helmet masks at once upon waking up. The uniforms had been custom jobs, fully tailored and molded to look as realistic as possible. None of them had understood until the spell had broken just how easy the armor was to wear, almost like a second skin or a well-made suit of clothes. And now the armor was real, the blasters were real, as they had just seen Giles demonstrate on the poor, wretched man they were tasked to guard, the whole thing was all too real. Yet there was still enough left of each of them that they wondered if ever they would have the chance to fly one of the TIE fighters through the Death Star trenches or in space after a particularly challenging target.

"Laugh it up, fuzzball," said Andrew after listening to Jonathan relay those same wishes to the other two. "couple of Stormtroopers like us have to earn that right. You don't seriously think that Xander or Dawn would ever think we deserved it?"

"Alright, I get it," groused Jonathan. "We're ground pounders, not fighter pilots. Still, we could learn on our own, couldn't we?"

Warren piped up at that. "Look, you guys, what's done is done. We're Stormtroopers now, Xander is the Moff, and as long as he wears that uniform, he's in charge of this station and his orders are the word of God, got it? Now, we play our cards right, we get Xander to let us use the simulators, and when the time comes and we've got our skills down, then we convince Xander to let us hop in one of the TIEs and fly missions for him. Once we've got enough of those under our belts, then we move on to bigger and better things. I'll let you guys know when the time comes and I know more, ok?"

"Oh, the daring Stormtrooper commander has a brilliant scheme all cooked up and ready to serve," piped in Rayne sarcastically. "What a lovely group of conspirators, simply lovely…"

"Shut up, asshole!" growled Jonathan. "You're lucky we've been told to keep you alive and healthy. If Xander doesn't shove a torture droid up your ass I'll be more than happy to suggest it!"

"Temper, temper, young man," retorted Rayne in a singsong voice. "We wouldn't want you to lose your military bearing in front of the Moff, would we, now?"

"That's enough, Jono!" snapped Warren. He glared pointedly at the chaos mage's eyes , those eyes that smiled at having won this small victory, and said, "His time will come, and so will yours."

The others nodded their assent of Warren's plan. Just then the comm crackled into life.

"Harris to Mears, this is Moff Harris calling Trooper Mears, respond?"

Warren walked over to the comm panel with Jonathan and Andrew in tow, and he pressed the relay. "Trooper Mears. What's going on, Xander? I got Jonathan here itching to shoot Ethan because of what happened tonight…"

Xander's voice came back, "Warren, you and your guys get Rayne and bring him up to the Bridge conference room; I have a special job that's right up your alley."

A special job? Now everyone's curiosity had been aroused, Warren saw the looks on Andrew's and Jonathan's faces, and he knew they'd want to be filled in ahead of time, the better to keep abreast of Xander's designs for the station and his new "crew"… Problem was, Warren knew everyone and his brother who had ever been a Star Wars geek would want to get their hands on what amounted to nothing less than the crown jewel of Emperor Palpatine's vast and terrifying armada. What he needed to protect his claim to the Death Star was to win Xander's favor and his total, unqualified trust, else the station would fall prey to any and every political enthusiast on Earth. Warren didn't know if that was the Stormtrooper in him talking or just the product of his own keen intellect, but he'd hazard a guess that certain politicos in Sacramento and in Washington and elsewhere would gain tremendous brownie points with their respective legislative bodies if they could somehow sway the commander of the Death Star to show favor to their respective state or country. That could not be allowed to happen, and Warren would say as much to Xander at the first opportunity.

Which, as it turned out, looked like it had come. "We're on our way," Warren replied and then removed his thumb from the comlink switch. To Jonathan he ordered, "Get that man back in binders." He looked at Andrew then to make sure he knew his part, and then he hinted with a blaster pointed at Rayne to cover him in case the wizard did something very foolish. In a moment, the deed was done, and the others nodded their readiness to leave. He then said, "We'll find out what he wants for us when we get up there. Let's go."

**Vigilant Watcher Overbridge**

Luckily, it hadn't taken long for Warren and his crew to escort their charge from Level Five to the Overbridge on Level One. The station was truly massive; one tended to forget just how large a small Class Four moon really was relative to the size of Earth's own moon, and if AA23 had happened to be placed on the other side of the station, then they would have been in for a long, boring ride over, never mind that there were numerous lifts and trams that would have possibly lessened the time and thus the tedium. Still, it was a great relief that Warren's small band of Stormtroopers had achieved their destination. Sitting in the overbridge conference room was not an option for them given their current duty, but that was soon to change, hopefully, with the new task they were about to be given by Moff Xander, as Warren had taken to calling him in his own mind.

He simply could not, nor was he overly inclined to, get away from his scifi geek nature. Indeed, Warren Mears wore the appellation like a badge of honor, as did his cohorts.

All eyes, however, now were drawn to Rayne with awe and more than a little antipathy for the chaos mage. All knew that it was ultimately his fault that everyone here had found themselves on board the infamous battle station, and that it was ultimately his fault that the station had been brought into being at all. What power did he command, what awesome deity did he worship, that could channel such energies as would summon forth so much matter as to assemble this most terrible construct? There were more questions in his presence, Warren warranted, than there would have been answers given that night, and Warren was more than eager to ask them, but the next moment proved those issues irrelevant as Xander finally walked in with Joyce Summers, Willow Rosenberg and a couple of their younger friends trailing him. The young Moff spent a moment regarding everyone's faces, and then at length he spoke.

"Most of us here have been made victims of a chaos spell that turned everyone into their costumes for a few hours," he began, eliciting exasperated sighs from the assemblage, "and by a random, innocuous choice of mine, it brought this battle station to reality, making this setting possible. What we didn't know, and what may have ben our doom had not our choices led to this station being here, was that secretly, a US military organization within the Air Force has been conducting missions to other worlds for the past year, worlds none of us had any reason to know existed, that is, until now."

At everyone's sudden murmuring, Xander continued. "Yes, the existence of aliens has been proven, even if it has not as yet been released to the public. The problem is, the aliens here mentioned have not exactly proven themselves benign to humanity, and according to our correspondence with this supersecret military organization, are actually hostile. For the past few hours, this organization, which as I've recently learned calls itself Stargate Command, or SGC for short, has been tracking two signals, which have revealed themselves within the past hour as enemy vessels intent upon assaulting and possibly invading Earth. The SGC's commanding officer, a Major General Hammond, has asked us to place ourselves and our battle station temporarily at their disposal, and we have agreed for the present circumstances to do so.

"Recent scans by the Hubble telescope have rendered several visual images of these hostile alien craft, and I'll put them up for display here on the holoviewer." At that moment, Xander pressed a series of buttons, and an image of two spacecraft appeared above the table. Each of the vessels looked like a pyramid stuck in the middle of a large, dark gray ovoid disc, which showed the ravages of spaceflight and even space combat encompassing the outer hull. "These belong to a spacefaring species known as the Goa'uld, according to the SGC, and the Goa'uld are known throughout the galaxy for posing as Earth-based deities and subjugating the worlds on which they hold sway. Apparently, they were lording it over Earth some thousands of years ago when Egypt was still a very young kingdom, and they captured and transplanted thousands of people to slave for them on hundreds of other worlds, mining and doing other stuff. Nowadays the SGC goes through what they call a Stargate on a regular basis and they take it to these Goa'uld, running small-scale guerilla operations, using small teams of four people or so to explore all these worlds and generally harass the Goa'uld. And that brings me to our current, um…'mission', for lack of a better term."

"Mission?" asked Warren. "Do you mean to say that we're going to find where these Goldy guys are and blow up their planet?"

The glare from Xander was worse than a thousand sunburns, and the words that came from his mouth that moment chilled Warren to the core and were burned into everyone's memory from that moment forward.

"Okay, I want to look at everyone's faces here when I say these next words, so I have no doubt that you're all hearing me. Under no circumstances, and I do mean _NO_ circumstances, will I allow this station's primary weapon to be used in any capacity against a world on which there's even a chance that there might be indigenous life. Let that be perfectly, absolutely clear to everyone here. If I hear someone so much as breathe a word about using that superlaser, which in the world of Star Wars was designed with only one purpose in mind, the purpose being to annihilate populated worlds with a single blast, then I will make it my mission in life to show that person the wonders of space while they're chewing vacuum! Does anyone sitting here not fully comprehend the meaning of my words? **I WILL PERSONALLY EJECT THAT PERSON INTO SPACE!**" he shouted, without the whole shouting thing, of course. Hostile words like those conveyed in an icy calm tone scared a person more than screaming the same words at the top of one's lungs, so it went to say that Xander had everyone's attention.

"I alone," he continued, "shall make the decision as to when, where, and why that superlaser gets used. I shall leave that decision to no other on board this station, and that is how it shall remain for the foreseeable future. Is that clear to everyone here?"

Not a one indicated any doubt or confusion on their part, so Xander was satisfied. "Good. Now that's out of the way, let's continue with the briefing. The SGC relayed to us that one of their SG teams went missing around a couple of days ago, and there has been no word about their situation or any indication of their whereabouts until the Hubble transmitted this video segment about an hour ago." Xander then pressed a couple of buttons, and the holoview display shifted into a close-up image of one of the alien craft. Various data surrounding the image indicated that this was a video file indeed, and then Xander pressed a button, playing the segment in time-lapse photography. For half a minute, there was nothing, and then a bright light flashed briefly from the apex of the pyramid portion of the vessel. Then the image froze in mid-flash, and Xander continued. "We don't know what that was, but the SGC relayed to us that the flash was consistent with the luminous intensity of an M84 stun grenade detonation. Now that in itself is no indication of any human presence aboard that vessel, but we did send the data we got from a recent scan of each of the craft, and the SGC confirmed our readouts. Three human life signs were detected aboard the nearest vessel to us, so we determined that those readouts constituted the SGC's missing team, which brings us to now."

Warren sighed to himself in relief, internally. The Stormtrooper within him knew better than to openly display frustration or impatience in the face of a commanding officer; for Warren's part, he was beginning to get a sense of when to listen to the Stormtrooper and when not to. He was no geek; Warren was, but this was not a situation where a geek's experience would benefit. He glanced aside to Jonathan and Andrew, who were, like Warren himself, still wearing their armor sans helmet, and still training blasters on Ethan Rayne, whose purpose here was a mystery. Was Xander planning something special for the chaos mage? Did he have a part in this as yet unrevealed plan? The man seemed to elicit only questions instead of answers.

Then the librarian stood up to address the assemblage. Now just what was he doing on board this battle station? The mysteries seemed to abound here on this most wondrous and terrible construct.

"This will basically be a rescue operation," Giles began, "in three phases. Phase One will consist of an ion cannon bombardment. We suspect that the Goa'uld craft have some sort of energy shielding that protects it from stellar debris during travel through space and from aggressive action during battle. Mr. Harris has assured me that if we engage the enemy with enough ion cannons for a certain period of time, then their shields will collapse, leaving them unprotected and thus vulnerable. This in and of itself would be easily done, with one exception."

"Which is?" asked Warren. He was a mere trooper, but even a mere rank and file trooper had to be able to ask a question concerning an operation on which he might take part. To do less was stupidity.

Giles looked at Warren and nodded. "Both alien craft have within the past half hour deployed several hundred smaller two-man craft, suggesting that these might be fighter ships of some sort. They have assumed a defensive posture around the local area of the Watcher's surface and are holding a distance of around five thousand kilometers, spacing themselves evenly apart, and that suggests to us that they are attempting to reconnoiter the battle station and learn where our strengths lie. What we plan for them is to send out our own drone fighter craft, of which we have several thousand, to engage and hold at bay the enemy fighter screen while we concentrate the bulk of our firepower on bringing down the Goa'uld vessels's shields. Once that is done, then we begin Phase Two, and Warren?"

"Yes sir, Mr. Giles?"

"You and your men will be on a landing craft which will board the alien vessel holding the SG team. You will go in, make your way to the bridge, neutralizing any resistance you encounter, and then you will make your way back with them to the shuttle, and get back to the station before the Goa'uld have a chance to restore their shields. Once you are all safely back aboard the station, then Phase Three will commence with a renewed ion bombardment targeting the engines on both craft as well as the surviving fighter craft. It's a bold stroke, but if it succeeds, then not only will we have rescued the Air Force's missing SG team, but we we'll also have captured a number of alien craft for study. Does anyone here agree with this plan as it stands? If there are any flaws in this plan, please feel free to point them out."

Warren raised his hand here. "Mr. Giles, Mr. Harris, do we know the concentration of enemy forces on board the ship holding the SG team? This might tell us whether we'll be able to move undetected to the objective or whether we have to fight our way there."

Xander spoke up here. "General Hammond, the SGC's commanding officer, has relayed to us a basic profile of the soldiers you'll encounter. At times you may be able to distract them with a well-placed thermal detonator somewhere else on the ship, but they are numerous, and more likely than not you will have to fight your way through at least half of those who haven't flown out in their fighters. Suffice it to say that stealth and secrecy are your allies here on this mission; the three of you don't want a stand-up fight against a couple of hundred Goa'uld warriors."

"Hammond's people also sent us files to help you navigate your way to the command bridge, where we think the SG team is being held, which files are being uploaded into your helmet computers as we speak. I don't need to remind you that getting shot at this point is not the best idea, yes?' Xander continued.

Warren sensed the gallows humor here, and a slight chuckle escaped his lips. "No, Mr. Harris, I think we'd have to take a rain check on that, as I doubt any of us has plans to die tonight."

Everyone's eyebrows raised in amusement. "And here I thought Stormtroopers were stupid," chortled Xander.

"That's because we're not Stormtroopers," shot back Warren with a smile on his face. "Me and my boys are just the men you need for this; we'll get the job done."

**Vigilant Watcher Overbridge**

"Buffy, arm ion batteries and stand by to open fire on my command."

The Goa'uld vessels shone brightly in the main tactical holodisplay as a wire-frame model with data streaming all around it. Several supplementary displays showed the status of the Goa'uld fighters surrounding the bulk of the battle station. They had moved on from their initial positions near the area surrounding the superlaser and the Overbridge, and now were spreading out, trying to cover the entirety of the construct.  
Buffy stood again at her station at Tactical, resplendent now in an Imperial gray officer's uniform, with the rank insignia and code cylinders of a commander. Her hair was combed neatly, and fell straight down to her neck, framing her face. Her fingers now wore no jewelry; an officer required none, and such adornments would only get in the way were she ever to need to punch buttons on a console or squeeze the trigger of her personal blaster, which Buffy now wore on her hip as a statement of authority. Those fingers now flew over her console, commanding the various armaments ordered by Xander to come online and to acquire a firing solution. Within seconds, the evolution was complete, and she reported, "Ion batteries armed and standing by, Goa'uld shields targeted. Ready to fire on your order."

"Very good, Commander Summers." Xander pressed a button on his comlink, altering the ordered frequency to communicate with the next recipient. "Overbridge to shuttle. Warren, are you and your men standing by?"

The voice of the boarding party's commander came back, "Extraction team ready to launch on your order, sir."

"Very good, Warren. I've got a thousand TIE drones ready to launch and make some lovely mischief out there for the Jaffa fighters. I'll let you know when to bring the party favors. Good hunting, guys."

"Ain't no fun if the homies can't have none, Xander. At least that's how the song went; I never was that much into rap." Warren replied with a repressed chuckle.

"Alright, Warren," Xander blessed his Stormtrooper team, "see you when you get back with our Air Force people. Overbridge out." Xander now clicked off his comlink and turned to Giles, "Mr. Giles, send to General Hammond that we are ready to commence our rescue operation. Dawn, program the TIEs to target the Death Gliders and shoot to disable, ion cannons only. Buffy?"

"Xander?" The diminutive blonde turned now to face Xander, and she notices a small smile cross his face as he nodded to her, indicating his readiness to begin their attack. In a clear voice, he issued the most important order of his life.

"Forward ion batteries, commence firing. Fire at will."


	10. Into the Fire, Part Two

Into the Fire, Part Two

_I still do not own these characters or elements of Stargate, Star Wars, or Buffy, nor shall I in the foreseeable future..._

**Aboard Klorel's Ha'Tak**

For the past half hour nobody moved. Even Apophis and his Serpent Guard dared not raise a hand against O'Neill and his team. Everyone's eyes were glued to the spectacle taking place near the Moon.

The Death Gliders launched from both ships were arrayed equidistant from each other around the construct, gathering all the information they could about the spherical planetoid and transmitting it back to Apophis's _Ha'Tak_. The odd thing was that nothing was being done to stop them. Were there even Tau'ri aboard that thing? It certainly would not have taken Tau'ri so long to figure it out before they started shooting, as the data received showed that the construct was some sort of battle station; there were literally thousands upon thousands of weapons covering the surface of this "Death Star", as the Shol'vah had termed it. Any _Ha'Tak_ would appear insignificant next to the size and firepower of this massive vessel, and a single _Ha'Tak_ could wipe out the population of a single world within a day's time.

The thirty minutes by Tau'ri reckoning that passed by seemed an eternity, but in the end Apophis decided to allow caution to rule here, as he strode up to the control console of his son's _pel'tak_ and thrust his hand into the sensor array, manipulating his fingers to command the shields to raise and envelop his ship. He was not disappointed, as less than a minute after he had raised his shields, great bolts of blue light reached out from everywhere on the Death Star's surface and impacted against his shields. Alarms went off in the _pel'tak_, signifying that the ship was in distress. Apophis called for a report of all damage, and he was surprised when the Jaffa giving the report stated that there had been no physical damage to the ship itself, but the shields were being drained at a rate with which the naqadah reactor could not keep up. The shields were already drained by twenty-five percent and dropping steadily with each impact of those bursts of blue light, followed by a subsequent power drainage that occurred proportionally with each impact of the blue beams upon the shields. In less than five minutes, the Jaffa had said, the shields would be gone, and the power loss would be so great that they would not be able to pick up enough to restore the shields, let alone fire weapons or move the ship. And for the first time in their lives, the Jaffa looked at their god and were dismayed, for if a god could doubt, then what use was it to follow or worship that god?

Teal'c, however, had neither ever seen doubt or fear in the eyes of any of the false gods, nor did he need to. He had already chosen not to follow the Goa'uld, and he had never looked back since joining his strength with that of SG-1. As for the source of Apophis's doubt, Teal'c knew what those bolts of blue light were.

He conveyed to O'Neill, "The ship is being targeted by an ion cannon bombardment from the Death Star, Colonel O'Neill. When the shields are depleted, the continuing bombardment will result in a shipwide power loss affecting nearly every system, including life support."

"We're obviously too small a target to waste the superlaser on," the Colonel replied. "I don't get why, unless they've somehow been in communication with Earth."

"That would imply that they know we're aboard," added Carter, "hence the decision to refrain from simply destroying this ship and its sister vessel. Otherwise, why waste the time or the effort?"

Daniel was nonplussed by his teammates' brief discussion. "This is all well and good, but don't you think we ought to try getting out of here and make for the Stargate while they're distracted?"

"Assuming there is one aboard this ship…" groused O'Neill as they began to ponder the best way to leave the _pel'tak_ without being noticed.

"There is one aboard, human," said Bra'Tac, "several decks down. But the doors to the _pel'tak_ are locked closed to prevent any Jaffa from entering the bridge in panic or desperation. We are stuck here."

"And we can't blast the door open; we used up all the C4 planting it around the ship to cripple it," added Carter.

"This day just keeps getting better and better," said O'Neill. "Teal'c? Can you find the controls to unlock the doors?"

The inscrutable former First Prime of Apophis negated, "I could locate them, but they are coded to only open at the command of the First Prime or the ranking officer aboard the ship. Someone will have to come to us…"

"Oh…well, at least it's not a total loss…" snarked O'Neill.

When it came to Jack O'Neill, however, Fate had a funny habit of playing malicious pranks, reminding him that Murphy was always on the clock, and especially alert for him. Murphy had to have chosen this moment to earn his money, as the moment those words left his lips, the bridge lights in the _pel'tak_ flickered and dimmed.

"You just _had_ to say it, didn't you, Jack…?" groused Daniel.

**Vigilant Watcher Overbridge**

The sudden firestorm had sent the alien recon craft and their pilots into a panic. Nearly half of the fighters had been caught in the opening salvos and were subsequently incinerated in supersized ion bolts that were wide enough to engulf them. The rest were buzzing around like angry hornets, looking for a weak spot to concentrate on, or at least to do enough damage by shooting at everything in general. Needless to say, it wasn't working, and the crew of the Watcherwere content to watch them try.

But at some point at least a few of them began to regroup and decided to target the ion cannons themselves. Small ports opened up on their wings and began to vomit plasma at every weapon emplacement they could target. They could not stand idly by and watch their gods become incapacitated by some upstart newcomer to the system, regardless of the size of the weapon he or she brought with them.

From the Overbridge, Xander and his company watched as the surviving figthers began to coordinate their response.

"Buffy?"

"Yeah, Xander?"

Xander tilted his chin in the direction of the main tactical screen, where they could see the Death Gliders begin to form groups and start coordinating their fire against multiple targets, looking to score a hit against a vital sector of the station. If they could ever find one, that was to say…

"Looks like those guys out there are starting to get wise. I want you to program and launch some TIE drones to attack them and break up their formations. They might not so much as scratch the paint on this bad boy we're on, but we don't want them to know that, do we? Plus it might keep them off the shuttle's scent when Warren and his team launch for the motherships."

"I'll have them occupying the enemy presently, Xander. Programming now…"

"What's the status on the enemy motherships' shields?" Xander then queried. He hoped they hadn't depleted the alien ships' deflectors too soon or too quickly, as he could not afford a lull in the ion cannonade for concern that the fighter craft might either concentrate their attack or decide that their motherships were threatened and fly home to their defense.

"Shields are at twenty-nine percent and falling on the nearby vessel, fifty-seven percent on the other one." She was performing very well in her task so far, and Xander had thought to make mention of that when General Hammond and his party arrived on the station to welcome SG-1 home. But that was then, and this was now, and now he needed to make a tactical decision. An idea suddenly blossomed in his mind courtesy of Tarkin…

"Concentrate your fire on the far vessel, Buffy. I want the near one to move into a position where they think they'll be protecting it just as the far one's shields collapse. When they do, we let them have it till they're dead in space."

"Confirmed, computing new firing solution…weapons are retargeting…near vessel's shields now at twenty-five percent and dropping, far vessel's at forty-nine. Launching fighters," Buffy responded.

"Very good, Buffy; let's see how they handle these vermin…"

**Vigilant Watcher, local space…**

The Death Gliders swerved and dove as they evaded the gargantuan construct's ion blasts, making their way as best they could toward the heavy cannons that were effectively giving the _Ha'Taks'_ shields the worst pounding they had ever taken in their glorious existence. As soon as each craft entered maximum effective range of their naqadah cannons, they took their shots, but for each one they destroyed, there were a hundred more, and the Jaffa pilots collectively began to wonder if they would ever succeed in protecting their home ships from destruction. Still, they tried, even though over a hundred had died instantly in the opening salvos of the enemy barrage.

For a while, they continued unopposed, even as the anti-fighter cannons continued to track and target them, their firing solutions being passed along to the next cannon emplacement whenever they missed a target. The Jaffa were accomplished combat aviators, but they were not perfect, or else they would have survived en masse regardless of the outcome. That all changed when the lead elements of each flight picked up a new group of signals.

Swarms of unmanned flyers, the total numbering at well over a thousand, emerged from the belly of the battle station and waylaid the Death Gliders as they zipped between turbolasers and ion batteries, causing as much destruction among the enemy as they could. They grouped themselves into three craft apiece and sped toward the hostiles at a rate that defied the Jaffa pilots' powers of reason. Having no living pilots enabled the killing machines to pull off maneuvers that would have pasted each Jaffa to the ejection seat of his or her respective craft were they to attempt the same, and so it was that the Jaffa began to struggle against the hideous and frightening onslaught of computer-controlled death machines. But the terrible speed and efficiency with which the TIEs dispatched each Death Glider one by one soon began to panic the otherwise unflappable Jaffa, and the engagement turned swiftly into a rout as each Jaffa began to reevaluate their interest in self-preservation against the swarm of destruction.

At least from the Jaffa's perspective it was destruction. The absence of a friendly signal on a Death Glider's scopes indicated the loss of a craft, and thus a brother or sister in the vast melee appeared to have been killed by the terrible drone fighters. But the TIEs were not programmed to use blaster cannons in this engagement, but ion cannons, and each burst of blue plasma that hit a Jaffa craft instead of destroying it and killing its pilot shorted out its avionics and other critical systems, leaving it dead in space to await a tractor beam lock, to be pulled into the Vigilant Watcher's hangar bays for impoundment. The only true fatalities of the conflict were a few unlucky Jaffa pilots whose disabled craft, as they drifted in space, were each rammed by a panicking Jaffa flyer that was overeager in his or her attempt to evade a squad of unrelenting TIE pursuers. In each case, both the colliding craft and its unfortunate obstacle were annihilated in a brilliant explosion.

**Pel'tak, Klorel's ship**

"They do not destroy our Death Gliders," stated Apophis with dawning comprehension and alarm as he watched the battle progress from the _pel'tak_. "If they capture the pilots they may learn our secrets." To Klorel, he then added, "Open fire on the battle station, son."

"Father?" Klorel replied with confusion. "The battle station is too massive; our ships could not hope to destroy it before they annihilate us."

Apophis turned to his son and looked into the eyes of the host that once called itself Skaara. "You are my son; were you any other, I would have punished you for showing cowardice, but I will simply enlighten you. I mean to destroy our own fighter craft to keep our loyal Jaffa soldiers out of the hands of the enemy. Now open fire."

"As you command, Father." Klorel reached into the control cube and manipulated his fingers to send the relevant commands to the weapons systems on board the Ha'tak. In less time than it took to blink, plasma bursts erupted from the muzzles of the naqadah cannons and streaked toward the spherical construct that had responded with so much force.

On the hull, the effects were negligible, but any errant TIE or Death Glider caught in the path of the Goa'uld plasma bombardment was instantly pulverized. The Jaffa pilots flying the unlucky machines knew only a brief flash of light before they passed beyond the veil between life and death.

**Vigilant Watcher Overbridge**

"They're destroying their own fighters…" Xander mused as he viewed the progress of the fight in local space on the holoviewer. These Goa'uld, as Hammond had called them, were nothing if not determined, having now chosen this moment to engage the Watcher directly. "Buffy, intensify the ion batteries immediately facing the near vessel, and launch another two wings of TIEs and program them to attack the enemy vessels' shields and power plants. I want those ships disabled for capture. And signal Warren and his team they have a go to launch…"

"Affirmative, Xander. Relaying your orders…" The Slayer's fingers flew across her console, inputting the commands to carry out Xander's intent.

"Dawn patrol?" He looked now to the younger Summers sister standing at the helm and navigator's station. In response to his voice, the redhead with the rank insignia of an Imperial Admiral looked up.

"Way ahead of you, Xan. I'm already moving the station closer to the lead vessel so Warren and his boys won't have to be out there in that mess for very long."

"Officer thinking, Dawnie, officer thinking. Halt your approach to the lead vessel as soon as you get within five kilometers of it, and we'll just see if we can aim some tractor beams at them and hold them for Warren once we get confirmation that their shields are down."

"You got it."

**Klorel's Ha'tak**

The massive construct loomed large upon the viewscreen, and bits of what appeared to be static indicated the presence and movement of fighter craft on both sides, fully immersed in their dance of death. Blue lightning emanating seemingly from the very skin of the battle station slammed into the mothership with a fury unknowable. The latest update from the tactical station on the _pel'tak_ indicated an almost complete shield collapse. And then, all of a sudden, the battle station shifted its fire to the other _Ha'tak_, the one with Klorel's holy father aboard.

Klorel was livid. How dare these upstart Tau'ri even imagine that they could endanger their gods? Still, he knew through his genetic memory that Goa'uld were as vulnerable as any other corporeal being to weapons fire, perhaps more so due to their dependence upon a host for their very existence, so he turned to the Jaffa standing the helm and shouted…

"For Apophis! Turn this ship into their fire! Put us between them and my father's ship! If we fail and survive you will all face my fury!"

In contrast to Klorel's ire, the countenances of the members of SG-1 showed their curiosity as well as perhaps a small measure of confusion. The confusion lasted only a moment, however, as they witnessed the effect of the Death Star suddenly abandoning its hammering of Klorel's shields in favor of Apophis's ship. The realization dawned upon the faces of O'Neill and Teal'c as well as the latter's mentor, who allowed himself a small smile.

"They wanted this to happen…" mouthed Bra'Tac to his pupil in naught more than a whisper.

"What are you two talking about?" put in the Colonel in the same _sotto voce_ tone to his Jaffa allies. Teal'c, for his part, merely raised one eyebrow a microscopic fraction of a centimeter, for him an expression of admiration.

"They left us alone and concentrated their fire on Apophis's ship because they figured Klorel would rush to his father's defense. Uncharacteristic of a Goa'uld, as the son tends to plot against the father," replied Bra'Tac, "but if we move between your Death Star and Apophis's ship, then they will show this ship no mercy."

"A simple maneuver," added Teal'c, "and a cunning ploy at once. And once the shields collapse, then this ship will swiftly lose all power, allowing us to open the main doors to the _pel'tak_ and withdraw to the glider bays."

"You know, Teal'c," quipped O'Neill, as he regarded the Jaffa's insight into their sudden opportunity, "I like the way you think…"

**Vigilant Watcher, Hangar Bay 327**

The _Lambda_-class (variant) assault shuttle was positioned in the bay like a missile ready to fire. The idea was to drop the atmosphere containment field on launch, timed from the Vigilant Watcher's Overbridge with the shuttle's primary sublight ignition. The combined forces of thrust and sudden decompression would shoot the craft out of the hangar bay like a bullet, or in the minds of the three geeks turned Stormtroopers, like a Colonial Viper in one of the Battlestar Galactica's launch tubes. To say that Warren and his two cohorts were stoked would have been a massive understatement.

They were launching in an Imperial Shuttle from the Death Star, they were Stormtroopers about to attack, board and infiltrate an enemy ship, and then they would locate an US Air Force Special Operations team and extract them from the enemy vessel, and then return to the Death Star with their precious cargo. The thought was both exciting beyond measure and sobering in the extreme; this was no longer a costume party, but the real thing. It was combat, in space, against a ruthless enemy that would certainly try to kill them on sight. Their actions this night would get people killed regardless, so it was the Trio's job to make sure the right people, namely themselves and the Air Force guys, stayed alive long enough to get back to the Death Star.

Fortunately for Warren and the others, there was enough left of the Stormtrooper in each of them after the spell broke that their excitement and trepidation were tempered by the steel of military discipline. As long as they did the job right, everyone would come home alive and in one piece each. And unlike the Stormtroopers of the films, Warren Mears was not so stupid as to go boldly into fire and take the first hit. He had read up on Microsoft's latest achievement in the Xbox video game console, which was soon to roll out to stores in the US sometime within the next couple of years. Their first game for the console was something called Halo, in which a similar character to the Stormtrooper went around slaughtering bad guys. The difference was that this Master Chief, as the character was called, did it the smart way. Some missions called for a more stealthy approach, and that was what his adaptive camouflage was for. Essentially, it was a sort of cloaking field that surrounded the Master Chief, and Warren Mears decided for Halloween night that he and Jonathan and Andrew would be smart Stormtroopers that night. Warren had even developed a back story of sorts, one that allowed him to blend stealth technology into the standard Stormtrooper's plastoid battlefield armor, in this case, adaptive camouflage. The rest of their kit included lots of sundry nastiness such as concussion grenades, thermal detonators, and other means of detection and deterrence. These were checked out thoroughly by each member of the team before Warren could certify them as combat-ready.

By this time the shuttle's preflight checks were concluded, including the cofferdam, which was lined with Corusca gems, tens of times harder than natural diamonds on Earth and capable of cutting through a ship's hull inside of a minute, allowing ease of entry and boarding by an assault force, and the tractor beams that drew the shuttle into position for a secure seal. Satisfied with that, Warren gave the thumbs-up to his team-mates, the signal to prepare for launch.

The others were moving in an instant, stowing their gear in pre-designated spaces for ease of access when boarding a hostile vessel. Weapon and equipment checks were completed, and Jonathan and Andrew took their launch positions and secured their crash webbing, signaling their readiness with a thumbs-up to Warren. The Stormtrooper commander then turned his head to their co-pilot, who was noticeably nervous about his situation. Ethan Rayne, in true form, regarded Warren with his characteristic smirk.

His singular gesture of feigned arrogance failed spectacularly to impress Warren Mears, who instantly replied with a final admonishment. "I advise you not to try anything stupid, Rayne; you're our way home while we're busy seeing to our Air Force rescuees. If we have to, mister, I'll kill you and drive us home ourselves, but that will give us more to do than we can manage, so I'd rather not pull the trigger on you just yet. Now get us ready for launch, and signal the Overbridge that we're in position."

He didn't have to be told twice; Imperial Stormtroopers were not known for their sense of humor, present company notwithstanding. "As you wish, Mister Mears." A tone chimed from his console indicating the Overbridge was ready to launch them into the void. "Command reports ready to drop the atmosphere containment field."

"Full power to sublights," Warren ordered. "RCS thrusters at station-keeping until drop, set deflectors on double front."

**Overbridge**

Dawn, at her station, was monitoring the assault shuttle's final checks and checking local space for anything that might impede the shuttle's progress to its objective. She had had Buffy detail a small fight of three TIE/AD's to clear the space along the assault shuttle's flight path for the first few kilometers from their point of launch, and satisfied with their readiness to launch so far, she opened the comm to the shuttle's cockpit.

"Assault shuttle 2432, Overbridge, you are cleared forward. Standing by to drop containment field on my mark. Bring your sublights to full power…"

Warren's voice over the speaker in Dawn's console came back, "Overbridge, AS 2432, sublights at full, RCS quads at station-keeping. Ready to launch…"

**Hangar 327**

The rumble of the sublights straining at full power, yet held back by the preignition shutoff valves of each engine that were held closed by the press of a button on the engineering console, could be felt by all as Warren reported his team's readiness to do their part. This was the ultimate thrill ride, better than being in a Viper in Galactica's launch tubes or being in an FA-18D Super Hornet locked into the magnetic catapult on a US Navy aircraft carrier. This was the ultimate high; each member of the Trio felt the rumbling of their chosen conveyance's sublight engines deep in their bones as they felt the adrenaline high of anticipation.

**Klorel's Ha'tak**

All watched with dread anticipation as the mighty ship of the Goa'uld moved into position to catch the withering ion cannonade and prevent the chariot of Apophis from being hit any further. Just as they began to eclipse the other Ha'tak, the ion barrage increased its intensity.

The members of SG-1 and the two Jaffa traitors began to hope for a miracle…

**Overbridge**

_They're right where we want them now…._ mused Xander as the lead vessel moved closer into the Vigilant Watcher's firing solution. Five seconds, then four, and the remaining seconds ticked away as Buffy reported the enemy vessels' shield strength at twenty-one and thirty-five percent respectively.

Two seconds, one….zero.

"All forward ion batteries concentrate on the lead vessel," Xander commanded. "Time to spring the trap. Dawn Patrol, you have the count. Launch our rescue team now…"

"You got it, Xander." Dawn then spoke into her microphone embedded into her console, "Shuttle 2432, you have a go. Dropping containment field, launch on my mark. In five, four…"

**Hangar 327**

"Three…two…one….mark!"

"Opening preignition shutoff valves to sublights, we are launching!"

The rush of the atmosphere evacuating from the hangar bay felt like a kick in the hindquarters as the Imperial assault shuttle was spewed forth into space. Almost immediately after clearing the hangar, the flattened oval apertures of the shuttles thrust nozzles flared in an actinic blue, accelerating the craft to hypersonic speeds in a straight path towards the lead ship. In the shuttle's troop bay adjacent to the cofferdam as well as in the cockpit, the cheers of three geeks and a chaos mage drowned out the comm chatter briefly.

**"****WOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"**


	11. The First One Through

The First One Through takes the First Hit...

_Disclaimer in First Chapter..._

**The First One Through takes the First Hit...At Least In the Movies...**

**Overbridge, Vigilant Watcher**

"Shuttle's away."

"Excellent, Dawn," smiled Xander. "Warren and his team should begin cutting into their hull and boarding just after the target vessel's main power goes offline. Keep tracking them, kiddo."

"Will do." Dawn's smile was as bright as the redness of her hair.

Dawn had always had a crush on Xander Harris. To her older sister's eternal dismay, she had been fond of referring to herself as "Mrs. Dawn Harris". Her diary entries were replete with colorful and descriptive language, to the point of being almost graphic, detailing how she intended one day to lose her virginity to him, and Dawn had carefully and closely guarded that particular secret, sequestered in the back of her diary and kept under lock and key. It would be to her eternal shame if that were ever to become common knowledge in the Summers household; Dawn would never live it down.

The events of Halloween had only intensified those feelings. She knew from Natasi's memories that the Imperial Admiral was in love with the Grand Moff in command of the Death Star, and that they had planned a secret honeymoon together after the Rebellion had been crushed. Now they would never know what had happened to the Empire's greatest threat since the Clone Wars, but Daala's feelings for Tarkin had intensified her own feelings for Xander, who had masqueraded as the Imperial sector governor. Perhaps now that love could be returned at last, even though that part of her that called itself Dawn Summers quivered in both disgust at still being a preteen whereas Xander was sixteen years old, and already a man in her view, and at a small measure of lust at wanting him more desperately than ever before.

She looked now at the man sitting in the command chair here on the Overbridge of the Death Star (Dawn still marveled at the idea of actually being on board the dreaded planet killer, even as Xander, her lover at least in her own mind, swore to never use the battle station in such a capacity and had renamed it in that spirit), and her heart lept at just seeing him. Just to watch him, and to listen to him…

A tone chimed from her console, returning her from warm, sexual distraction to cold, brutal reality. She looked down and dreaded for the assault team; a group of Death Gliders was changing course to intercept the shuttle, to blow it out of the stars.

"Buffy? Death Gliders on an intercept course for the shuttle!"

Her sister looked up with some semblance of alarm, then began to input commands into her console. "On it, Dawnie; retasking fighters to fly escort for the shuttle. Engaging Death Gliders now…"

**Shuttle 2432, on approach to Goa'uld vessel, four hundred fifty kilometers from target**

"We got bad guys; Jono, Ethan, man the turrets!"

The two men in question ran to the stern of the shuttle and quickly climbed up into and brought the aft-facing laser cannons online, as Warren fought to steady the Imperial craft on its course. The intensified barrage of ion discharges and plasma bolts back and forth between the Death Star and the Goa'uld ships had caused local space to fill with charged particle scatter. Whatever the shuttle plowed through in its path had either bounced off the deflector shields or adhered magnetically to the hull sternward, causing ionization of the surface material, the effect of which was to bounce the shuttle around as though it were flying through atmospheric turbulence.

"Can you keep it steady, Warren? I can't get a solid lock on my target!" Jonathan called from the rear of the craft.

Warren shook his head as he had expected flying through space to be as smooth as satin. Apparently he hadn't thought the matter through so much as that; Imperial Stormtroopers weren't paid to be accomplished pilots as their bloody work was on the surface of planets. Thusly, Warren was frustrated.

"Andrew, get up here and lend me a hand, we got some serious chop to fly through here!" he called back, and the third member of the Trio scrambled up to the cockpit and took the seat that Ethan had vacated in his haste to man one of the two cannons. He looked at the control board and saw something that gave him pause, but only because he was elated; they had help.

"Picking up TIE drones on approach vector; they're engaging hostile craft ahead of us," Andrew replied, grasping the control yoke on his side and immediately feeling the resistance of the shuttle to the debris throughout the space in their flight path. He grunted with exertion as he and Warren together fought to keep the ship flying straight and level to their objective.

"How far out is it now?" called out Ethan from his turret.

"Four hundred klicks, Rayne. Keep those bastards off of us!" retorted Warren.

"I'm finding that rather difficult now, my good sir, as there are so many more of our drone craft out here than enemy targets; I would not risk hitting one of them if I can manage it…"

"Excuses, Rayne, just line up a shot on anything that doesn't look like a TIE fighter and kill it!" Warren shouted back, irritated now that the chaos mage was actually complaining about avoiding a blue-on-blue incident. Their TIE fighters were flying unmanned; no lives would be lost if an eyeball were to get blown to bits in the increasingly intense furball out here. That wouldn't change until they started flying the more advanced TIE models on board, and besides, they had a mission to accomplish _now_…

Warren checked out the range to their objective one more time. Three hundred fifty kilometers now…Three twenty-five…

**Klorel's Ha'Tak**

The lights were flickering now with greater frequency, and the Jaffa on the _pel'tak_ had begun to worry for their ship. Klorel showed no signs of worry, however; he was too angry, too livid for that.

Not only had the shields begun to fluctuate as they neared the point of imminent collapse, but his loyal Jaffa had begun to show signs of potential disloyalty. They needed an object lesson in the foolishness of defying their god, but it would have to wait until after this battle was over and won. That, however, did not appear to be likely because as soon as his ship had moved to protect his father's from the battle station's ion barrage, the offending Tau'ri construct had begun to attack them in earnest. Klorel understood now that they had fallen victim to a cleverly laid trap.

Elsewhere in the ship, Jaffa soldiers that were not immediately tasked to guard the various sections of each deck had been summoned to perform damage control duties. The massive ion discharges against the shields had been strong enough to carry over as the shields' strength waned to spill over into the rest of the ship's systems, causing shorts and damage to instruments at various consoles and minor components. Effectively, the Jaffa security force had been whittled down to a mere shadow of its previous self, and any aggressors who managed to find their way aboard would not have such a difficult time in infiltrating the vessel and causing whatever mischief they could. That included any Jaffa with designs on rebellion, as was rumored to be occurring on Chulak and elsewhere.

Certain of those Jaffa loyal to Master Bra'Tac were even now working as unobtrusively as possible to pave the way for a certain shuttlecraft from the gigantic Tau'ri station to secure itself, without detection, to the ship's hull and insert a boarding party. The shuttle's progress was being tracked from various sensor stations near the _pel'tak_ and elsewhere by seditious Jaffa where their work could be concealed from the false god on the command bridge. Others were working to undo the lockdown that sealed them from the bridge, hoping that the result would facilitate their entry and rescue of the Tau'ri inside.

Those Tau'ri in question were now watching the spectacle that was the furious space battle taking place with a mixture of wonder and dread. Any minute now and the shields would go down, and the ship itself would suffer, though it would not be destroyed. Stopping the Goa'uld from attacking Earth was no longer in question, the Death Star was handing them their fundaments, but it still would not amount to much if SG-1 didn't have a plan to get out of there. Even now each of them was casting around the place, looking for an opportunity to take advantage of the present chaos, looking for something, anything.

The gold-hued walls were covered in inscriptions reminiscent of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs; it was the language he had learned on Abydos, the language they had learned in their turn from Ra. A bit of translation helped him to locate the code panel that locked out the rest of the ship from the _pel'tak_. He turned now to Jack now and tugged surrepetitiously on the colonel's sleeve.

"Jack…" he whispered without turning to meet his gaze.

"Space Monkey?" O'Neill replied similarly. Cluing in the Goa'uld to their little discussion at this time would not have been wise, and so O'Neill wisely kept his gaze leveled at the viewscreen as he responded.

"Right side of the door, a foot and a half from the edge and about four feet up. A group of inscriptions that resemble numbers in Ancient Egyptian. Hard to spot unless you know what you're looking for, and it's camouflaged to appear indisctinct from the rest of the inscriptions on the wall. If I can create a diversion, can you short it out with a burst from one of those zat guns?"

Jack did his best not to roll his eyes, not only to indicate in any way that a conversation was being held without the Goa'uld's knowledge, but also for the second most obvious reason; the archaeologist was brilliant, but he was clearly not a sci-fi buff, for which this particular situation called.

"Dr. Jackson," he whispered, using the honorific to make his point, "if that fight out there keeps going like those of us in the know expect, then in a few short minutes these snakeheads are going to have enough to worry about without _us_ trying to throw a monkey wrench into the works…no offense, buddy."

Realization suddenly dawned in Daniel's eyes. "Oh…Teal'c did say that those ion blasts from the Death Star would bring down the shileds and drain this ship's power supply. No problem then… and no offense taken. We'll just wait then…."

And wait he did, listening all the while to the various reports the Jaffa made to Klorel. The last thing he heard was the shield strength dropping now to less than ten percent. The minutes would prove short indeed.

**Vigilant Watcher, Overbridge**

The count stood now at nearly three hundred Death Gliders and pilots captured. It was a shame there weren't more, but the _Ha'tak_ out there was making short work of its own remaining fighters. Still, Xander had the beginnings of a crew for the Watcher as well as a space defense force to supplement the TIE drones. Perhaps when the time came, and he could secure their loyalty, they could be trained on the basic TIE craft, as well as the advanced models that he had known were in the planning stages by the time the Death Star, as it was known then, had destroyed Alderaan. A passing thought, but a good one. He would have to remember it later when this fight was over.

Turning now to face the main tactical screen, he called out, "Shield status of enemy vessels?"

Buffy, hearing this, reported back, "Near pyramid ship stands at nine percent shield strength, collapse is imminent, Xander. Far vessel shows thirty percent shields. Intensifying forward ion batteries now; boarding party is two hundred fifty kilometers from the near vessel and closing rapidly."

"Good looking out, Buffster, but add a turbolaser barrage to your ion attacks for the next thirty seconds; I don't want that thing trying to blast Warren and his team before they get there, ok?"

Buffy indicated her assent with a simple inclination of her head. "Very good, Xander. I shall now bring the forward turbolasers online in Zone One and assign the near vessel to their targeting computers. Stand by…turbos have begun firing, thirty seconds and counting."

The man who had for a brief time tonight played host to the spirit and knowledge of a fictional Grand Moff of the Galactic Empire nodded his head in approval. "Very good, Buffy. Keep on it." Turning now to the Slayer's younger sister, he ordered, "Dawnie, send a signal to our assault team; tell them to time their approach so that they arrive the moment that thing's shields go offline. That should give them time to cut through that ship's hull just as their main power goes kablooey, right?"

"Righto, Xan. Coding your message…sending." After only a minute of waiting a tone chimed on Giles' board.

"Xander?"

"What's up G-…uh, Rupert?" Xander corrected himself, earning a glare from the Watcher stationed at Comm-Scan.

"Warren and his team send their compliments and ask you, and I quote, 'to please let them do our frakking job the way our stormtrooper commando selves were trained to do,'" he replied with a sniff of amusement.

"Well, they are the best at what they do. I'll keep that in mind, Rupert. How far from the lead ship are they now?" queried Xander to Buffy at the Tactical Station.

"One hundred kilometers and closing, Xander; their shields have been taking a couple of hits from those Death Gliders that are hard on their asses. Ninety-five percent, though…looks like their shuttle can take quite a pounding from those plasma cannons…"

"Just what it was designed to do, Buffster. How long till that thing's shields go down?"

"One minute, give or take."

Xander's eyebrows went up at that piece of data. Perhaps it was premature; after all, Warren and his boys hadn't even boarded yet, let alone found SG-1 and exfilled; but aside from the reception he would have to organize for General Hammond and his bunch down below in Cheyenne Mountain, he would have to prepare a welcome-back party to greet the Trio when they returned to the station with SG-1 in hand.

"Aaaannd….turbolasers have stopped firing," Buffy now reported, "Goa'uld shields now at four percent…three…shuttle closing to twenty kilometers…fifteen..."

**Klorel's Ha'Tak**

The bridge lights suddenly went dark. They came back on after what seemed to be only an instant, but in the minds of SG-1, that one instant signaled the death knell of the ship. Jaffa at their various stations panicked and looked at their god for assurance and confidence, and finding none, felt their panic and overall fear increase to levels never known since they were first implanted with their _prim'tah_. This had never happened to any vessel in the vast armada of the System Lords; when a _Ha'Tak_'s shields went down, it usually signified the ship's imminent destruction. They did not know how to react in such situations as when a pyramid ship's power went offline from an enemy attack. And they were certainly unprepared to deal with the Death Star's incredible power.

And now various systems throughout the _Ha'Tak_, a massive vessel in and of itself, were showing up on the bridge as going offline. The first thing to go was the main engines, which caused a shudder throughout the ship and shaking most of the crew off their feet momentarily.

If they could no longer maneuver, then they could no longer protect their sister vessel, which held the god Apophis, leaving both ships now at the tender mercies of the horrifying battle station. In the minds of the false gods and their Jaffa slaves, 'horrifying' was indeed an appropriate term to describe their enemy now. When the primary weapons grid went offline, they realized that they could no longer protect their own from capture by the enemy.

For the first time, the mighty warrior Klorel, son of Apophis, considered the very real possibility of defeat at the hands of the Tau'ri….

**Assault Shuttle 2432, on final approach to enemy vessel…**

The TIE drones shadowing their craft had proven a most reliable escort on the final approach to the _Ha'Tak_, Warren considered with gratitude to Xander and his crew. And as much as he hated Rayne, he had to consider the fact that none of this would even have been possible if the man had not pulled his infamous Halloween prank. Sweet Jesus, but they were having the time of their lives…

Jonathan had made a good account of himself on one of the gun turrets, having shot down nearly a dozen Death Gliders, his record only being eclipsed by Rayne's impressive count of twenty-five fighter kills. Who knew the old wizard was such a good shot, especially with an unproven weapon, on an unproven vessel? And for his part, Andrew was proving himself an excellent pilot; Warren had done his part, surely, but in the middle of ionic turbulence Andrew was truly showing his quality. They had ridden through that particular mess looking damned good, and though a few dozen more bandits were hot on their stern, their plasma shots passed by without so much as scorching the paint. They expected to take a few hits, of course; it was an assault craft after all, not a luxury liner, and their purpose was to board the _Ha'Tak_ which was now less than twenty kilometers off the bow.

"Andrew, bring the tractor beams online," Warren ordered as they closed on their objective, a point on the pyramid portion of the ship that was situated on the deck just below the command bridge and combat information center. This was necessary as the apex did not provide enough surface area for a solid tractor lock.

"Aye sir, powering up tractor beam system and cofferdam," Andrew complied, his fingers moving across his console with virtuoso precision. After a moment, a screen display on his panel changed to show that portion of the ship's hull where they intended to board. Three crosshairs, arrayed in a triangle to make the best use of accuracy and redundancy, should one of the beams happen to fail or otherwise go offline, showed the best points where the autoaiming tractor beam emitters would target the hull and lock on.

Andrew's brow began to glisten with beaded sweat as he concentrated on guiding the emitters; he didn't particularly care for the autoaiming system, and preferred to aim it himself. The targeting computer did help a lot, and he followed its suggestions, but there was still something hindering his progress…

"Warren, cut main engines and let's go in just on maneuvering thrusters; inertia should carry us the rest of the way until we're in range for a solid lock," he suggested, tweaking the reaction control system ever so slightly so as to avoid overcorrection…they were still fifteen kilometers out.

Warren nodded his head and complied with what he considered a most sensible decision. "Main engines offline, cutting thruster power to seventy-five percent also…how's that help?"

The young mage and stormtrooper commando huffed with disbelief. Warren had actually made it easier for his clumsy hands to manage the job of keeping the damned crate on a straight path. "I feel like Scotty backing that inspection pod onto the Enterprise's hull. Damn, but that does help, dude…ten kilometers out, we're now in range, activating tractor beam system. Get that old bastard up here to take the helm, we've gotta get ready."

"That's for sure…" snarked Warren, "RAYNE! I hope you figured out how to fly us back, now get your old ass up here and take over. We've got a date with some snakeheads…" Pulling his helmet mask over his head, Warren watched as Andrew spooled up the cofferdam. "Hey, Rayne?"

The Chaos Mage stopped briefly to regard his captors-slash-minders-slash-handlers with a condescending eye. "How now may I be of service, my dear boy?"

Warren only smiled as the cofferdam spun up to its full rotational speed, causing the deck on which they were standing above and aftward of it to vibrate terribly. "Brace yourself…"

The shuttle shook with the reverberations of the cofferdam's contact, setting everyone's teeth on edge and rocking Rayne neatly off his feet and into the cockpit with an undignified "Whoooooaa-OOF!" Warren regarded the results of Andrew's handiwork with both eyebrows raised in amusement.

"Nice job, Andrew; let's go. Hey, Rayne?" he smirked, "since we can't tap into the Goa'uld ship's power grid, I'm counting on you to draw off what we've got to keep the shields up. Those Death Gliders are still out there looking to blow this ship to scrap. I already told you that you're our way home, so don't do anything you'll regret later, because we certainly won't…" He didn't wait for a response as he donned his helmet mask and sealed it to the rest of the underlying bodysuit. Andrew did the same, and they both strode aft to the belowdecks access ramp, where Jonathan was already waiting with their gear, fully encased in his helmet mask and armor.

"Alright, guys, are we doing this or what? Cuz I don't wanna be the first to go through the hole; first through always takes the first hit and gets killed!"

"We all watched _Star Wars_ a thousand times, we all know this. Guess what? That was a movie!" Jonathan pointed out. He took pride in being the most level-headed member of the Trio, and the others knew it. "Those guys were just cannon fodder; we're the real deal. The ones whose memories we absorbed were a lot better trained in shipboarding tactics than what we're used to watching."

"That's right, guys," said Warren. "We're not the run of the mill guys in white armor, we're kriffing Stormtrooper commandos! And I'll let you guys in on a little secret…"

"What's that, O Great One?" qipped Andrew with a look that bordered between sarcasm and adoration.

"The bad guys don't know who or what we are. We'll be taking them totally by surprise!"

"Piece of cake!" said Andrew with a shrug of his shoulders, after a moment's contemplation and subsequent realization. Jonathan followed suit with his own words.

"Yeah, it is gonna be a piece of cake…or a handful of _gagh_" was his reply to Warren, who looked at Jono askance.

"bIjatlh 'e' yImev!"* he commanded the smaller-statured stormtrooper in Klingon. They hadn't yet allowed him to live it down the one day he tried to eat live earthworms as a dare, pretending they were the Klingon national snack. "Let's go…"

*"Shut Up!" in Klingon - Thank you Mark Okrand!


	12. An Impossible Rescue

An Impossible Rescue

_Disclaimer - The previous chapter included a reference to the Halo franchise, which is owned by Microsoft. All others belong to Whedon, Lucas, Wright and Glassner. I do not own these characters. If I did, I wouldn't be writing this.._

_A/N: This is a short chapter, but I needed to post this for the sake of pacing the action scenes...happy reading..._

**Klorel's ****_Ha'Tak_**

The bridge lights flickered a final time, and then went dark as the ship's main power went offline. In that moment, SG-1 saw their chance, and they attacked as one, O'Neill and Carter opening up on the Jaffa at each of the consoles, Daniel turning to aim his M9 Beretta at the door to catch any Jaffa unawares that tried to enter the _pel'tak_. Bra'Tac fired at the bridge controls, frying them and taking Apophis by surprise. Teal'c saw his chance and slipped behind Klorel, placing him in a choke hold with one arm while removing his hand device with the other, then aiming his zat'ni'ktel at the false god's head. In that moment, the bridge lights returned to a low intensity as the _Ha'Tak_'s emergency generators came online.

"Weapons down or I kill Klorel!" Teal'c shouted.

For his part, the countenance of Apophis's host evinced raw fury and surprise. "Bra'Tac! Why do you betray me!" he voiced his anger at his former First Prime.

"As I said to you before, Apophis, I shall no longer worship a false god! We shall now take our leave of you, and if you show any inclination to delay us, Klorel will suffer for it…"

"Father, please! Forgive me!" pleaded the current hostage of SG-1.

Just then the door to the _pel'tak_ erupted in a shower of sparks and shrapnel as it was blown apart…

**Klorel's ****_Ha'Tak_****, Deck Two**

Warren and his company had engaged their active camouflage before they passed through the cofferdam, the automatic filtration systems in their helmet masks doing their best to separate the good breathing air from the acrid stench of the burnt metal of the vessel's hull. The cutting action of the Corusca gems had startled and alerted the Jaffa passing by; they were now behind cover, waiting for whoever had opened a great hole in the side of their ship, waiting to blast them back into space in as many burnt pieces as they could manage. When the piece of their hull that had been cut out fell inward, they began to fire upon the hole.

Naturally, they had hit nothing. The stormtrooper commandos had hidden well behind the cofferdam, waiting for just such an ambush. Warren then counted to three, slowly, with hand and arm signals and then clenched a fist. While he counted, Andrew had primed a concussion grenade and held it ready, and when his boss made the signal to release, he leaned out briefly from the cover of the cofferdam and tossed the ordnance underhanded so that it rolled into the ship's corridor. Two things then happened in the next instant.

Andrew then pulled himself back behind cover, with a generous assist from Jonathan, and he plastered himself to the hull of the shuttle. Then, the visors in everyone's helmet masks polarized as an intense brilliance flooded the interior of the enemy vessel.

"Let's go, guys," Warren whispered over the helmet comm. As one, they rushed into the corridor, fists curling to reveal the deadly vibroblades extending from the knuckle plates in their gloves. Each Jaffa that attempted to locate a target got an unseen, yet extremely sharp blade in the throat for his trouble, red arterial blood gushing from their necks and painting the walls as their lives drew to an untimely close.

The stairwell to the bridge level above was just around a corner. Warren approached first and aimed his E-11 upwards. "Clear up," he announced. "Andrew, go. Jono, you follow him up and prep a breaching charge. I'll cover the rear."

Double clicks from each of their mikes confirmed his orders, and Andrew ascended the stairs first, his E-11 aimed up and ready, his gloved finger tight on the firing stud. Jonathan then climbed the steps after Andrew, his point of aim slightly forward of Andrew, ready to blast anyone that dared to get in front. After a quick check of the corridor, Warren was satisfied that none would be behind them, unless one counted zombies. Still, he aimed back periodically as he followed his team up. He was a stormtrooper commander, after all, and it did his team no good for him to slack off. Besides, his years in Sunnydale so far had taught him to expect the unexpected. Zombies might not be expected on this ship, but in Sunnydale they may as well have been par for the course. He took no chances; anything that dared to move would find themselves turned quickly into crispy critters.

On the bridge level, Andrew and Jonathan were already stacked up on the entrance. Warren came up and quickly took his position alone on the other side of the door, nodding to Jonathan his unspoken question. The nod back indicated Jonathan's readiness to plant his breaching charge on the seam between the bridge doors. Warren held out an open hand, then clenched it into a fist quickly, and then Jonathan took out a small square object. The standard Imperial issue breaching charge, used in situations where troops needed a quick entry, could put a five-meter hole through ferrocrete thirty centimeters thick. It could also shred simple steel doors outlaid with gold. It contained an internal three-second fuse; once the charge was placed the fuse was engaged, and Force help the unlucky soldier or civilian that found themselves on the other side.

Jonathan placed this object squarely on the seam of the double doors at about head height, then with Andrew's help pulled himself swiftly back and plastered himself against the bulkhead. Three seconds….

Two…

One…

**Inside the ****_pel'tak_**

The doors split apart with an ear-splitting crack, causing everyone inside to duck instinctively. The Jaffa that hadn't been felled by Tau'ri small arms fire lifted their zat'ni'ktels and aimed toward the breach, ready to deal death to whatever came through. Apophis, ever the characteristic Goa'uld, activated his personal energy shield and waited for the inevitable attempt to take his life. He laughed inwardly at that fact, for who could kill a god? Who would even dare?

Suddenly weapons fire erupted through the breach as several shimmering forms stormed through. It was very difficult to make them out through the smoke; they were also using some sort of cloaking technology that obscured their forms, though it did not make them disappear entirely. The weapons fire, though, was different than any the Goa'uld, or SG-1, for that matter save a certain _Shol'vah_, had ever before encountered in life or story.

Whatever the red laser bolts hit was killed outright; the Jaffa that tried to make out any targets had been disappointed sorely, the evidence of that disappointment clear in the smoking holes in their bodies that were gouged and burnt out wherever the red plasma made contact. What advantage the assaulting enemy had then suddenly disappeared as the cloaks faded on each one, revealing three white-armored shock troops. Their weapons were trained with deadly accuracy on the surviving Goa'uld.

Those weapons, and that armor were instantly recognizable now due to the members of SG-1's familiarity with popular science fiction.

"I don't believe it," Jack spoke with utter disbelief, "Imperial Stormtroopers?!"

Teal'c, for his part, was rapt with sudden and uncharacteristic joy. His face, however, betrayed none of it. "The appearance of their weapons and their armor suggests a strong likelihood, Colonel O'Neill," he suggested in his own turn.

"This is not possible…" murmured Carter.

Just then, one of the Stormtroopers spoke, his voice rendered by his helmet's vocoder. "Hasn't stopped it from being real. Captain Samantha Carter, right?" She nodded mutely, her mouth agape at the impossible sight before her.

"That would make you all SG-1. We have orders to get you off this ship and back to the Vigilant Watcher. General Hammond will join us there shortly once it's confirmed you're all well. Colonel O'Neill?" the leader queried with a look at the commander of SG-1.

"Yeah, that's me. You boys gonna remove your helmets so we can see you?"

A snort emitted from the trooper's vocoder. "Nice try, Colonel, but I assume you notice we still have Goa'uld to deal with here?"

Teal'c looked at his hostage with delight in his eyes. "We are not under orders to take them prisoner, yet they may prove a valuable source of intelligence. With your permission, O'Neill, we should take them with us to the Death Star. They may have a means of holding them prisoner until we can contact the SGC."

Deep, reverberating laughter suddenly erupted from Apophis.

"Something amuses you, Alpo?" asked Jack, a single eyebrow raised in interest.

"Your insolence does, Tau'ri. You think you can keep a god prisoner?" Apophis replied.

"See, that's where we disagree. From where I'm standing, I don't see any god. Does anyone see a god here?" Jack asked, looking around at his teammates and the Stormtroopers.

Bra'Tac chose this moment to reply. "This may be the third time I have said it, but I see no god where he stands, human." The others just shook their heads slowly indicating the negative.

One of the other Stormtroopers then spoke. "Doesn't walk like a god, doesn't quack like a god…nope, not a god."

"Thanks for that brilliant assessment," returned the lead stormtrooper. "Now as much as we'd love to stay and discuss the difference between men and gods, or," waving his armored hand at Apophis, "whatever _you_are, I think we have a timetable to keep, so let's make with the quick departure before our esteemed pilot decides to save his own ass?"

The third stormtrooper then replied, "Well, since you put it that way…"

Their behavior was confusing to Jack; it was not the way Imperial Stormtroopers acted. "Would somebody explain to me just what is going on here?" he asked in frustration.

"Once we're back on the station, Colonel, right now we need to be moving," said the leader.

"Then let's go."

Teal'c then jabbed Klorel in the side with his zat. "Move," he commanded.

They were the first to file through the breach, followed by Apophis at Bra'Tac's urging, then the members of SG-1 and finally the Stormtroopers. Down the stairs they marched, Klorel at the head as a human (or Goa'uld) shield in case he tried to summon any surviving Jaffa from elsewhere in the ship. Even if he tried, the sight of him with a zat to his head would fill any other Jaffa with dismay and confusion; none would attempt to kill their god, Klorel surmised.

Suprisingly, none came to his or Apophis' aid, and before long they found themselves in unfamiliar surroundings. The insolence of the Tau'ri, it seemed, knew no bounds. They were appalled at the sight of the gaping hole in the hull, through which they were strongly urged to pass through. The small shuttle attached to the _Ha'Tak_ on the other side was to be their conveyance, then, for the duration of the trip to the construct beyond.

Just then Bra'Tac doubled over in pain from an elbow to his armored midsection. The rest of the invaders looked over to see Apophis fleeing back up the stairwell to the _pel'tak_. Bra'Tac recovered just quickly enough to aim his staff weapon and fire a burst of plasma at the swiftly-disappearing false god. He started to run after him when Teal'c shouted briefly, "Leave him! Master Bra'Tac, we must go! There will be another time."

Reluctantly, Bra'Tac lowered his staff weapon and boarded the Imperial shuttle with the others. To Teal'c he replied sternly, "I hope so, old friend, but when that time comes we may yet see a hundred attack ships in Earth's orbit since we have allowed Apophis to flee."


	13. Sliding Into Home

Sliding Into Home...

_A/N - Certain facts were brought to light in a recent review in order to preserve continuity, and for that I must thank that reviewer, who shall g ounnamed until I find it...those particular issues have now been corrected..._

**Shuttle 2432, interior**

Boredom certainly wasn't the word to describe Ethan's mood; he had figured out quite quickly how to balance the shields to augment whatever got hit when he saw the first alien fighters take several potshots at the shuttle. The assault team couldn't come back quickly enough with the American Air Force rescuees, and the whole time he felt that they wouldn't get back in time, as the attacks kept coming with ever greater frequency and intensity.

Almost as if they were dead set on peeling the shuttle off their mothership's hull like a particularly nasty leech.

Thus it was to his greatest relief that Warren and his team returned to the shuttle with the members of the beleaguered Air Force team in tow, as well as a bonus. When he saw their hostage, who appeared to be little more than a human youth in a futuristic version of an Egyptian costume, he looked at the boy askance.

"Picking up strays along the way, are we?" he asked impatiently. A response both from Klorel and Warren at once was not what he expected.

"Save the chatter, Ethan; we need to separate from this ship like, yesterday. Get up to the cockpit and get us on our way while we secure our guests belowdecks," Warren replied.

Klorel's reponse, while less verbal, was more unsettling. Ethan heard a sizzling sound which seemed to come from the unearthly glow in the whites of Klorel's eyes as they glared into his own with all every promise of pain and torment he could envision. Without a word, Ethan sealed the cofferdam and hastened to the pilot's station in the cockpit.

Below, in the troop bay, the members of SG-1 were looking around at their new surroundings, more than one of them deciding then and there that things had definitely taken a turn for the surreal. The Stormtroopers (Jack was still trying to wrap his brain around the idea of real Stormtroopers with real blasters and riding in a real Imperial shuttle…hoo boy) were securing Klorel with a set of binders which set his wrists at right angles to each other. Their rigid construction prevented him from working his wrists to free himself, which didn't stop him from trying; in between moments of spouting foul obscenities at them and at SG-1 and particularly Teal'c, he struggled futilely to free himself.

Apparently even the strength given to a host by a Goa'uld symbiote was not enough to free one from Star Wars handcuffs, Jack thought. Looking over at his XO, Jack couldn't help but hide a smirk at Carter's befuddled expression, indicating her equal excitement at the chance to examine in great detail a new technology and confusion as to how, by any means, a variety of craft and technology from the fictions of George Lucas could be produced to such accuracy of form and function. He didn't know whether she was going to faint or wet her underwear. Teal'c, of course, was as inscrutable and laconic as ever, though he and his fellow Jaffa turncoat Bra'Tac were chattering, by turns both amicably and excitedly, or at least Jack assumed they were; he had yet to decipher the nuances of the Goa'uld language. That was more Jackson's field.

His thoughts were interrupted by the pilot's voice over the public address. "I must apologize for the intrusion into your business below, but the sensors have detected a rather large number of enemy fighters headed in our direction. Perhaps someone could man the turrets and hold them off while I get us clear of this ship?"

"How many?" queried the Stormtrooper leader. "And what's the status of our drone fighters?"

The British gentleman's voice returned, "About twenty fighters, and our drones are accounting themselves rather well near the station, with some thirty drones patrolling near us. Perhaps the turrets could give us the edge in defending ourselves the same as they did on our initial approach?"

"Sounds good, Ethan. I'll be up there in a moment. Get us separated from the hull and on our way back to the Watcher," was the Stormtrooper's response. He then turned his masked head toward Jack and asked a simple question.

"How good are your people with large-scale energy weapons?"

To that Jack replied, "Teal'c and Bra'Tac can each fly a Death Glider – "

"Those things out there?"

"Yup. Your people should still man the turrets; we're not exactly qualified to handle Imperial weapons like your turrets, and we're better suited to looking after our guest than three Stormtroopers; we're more experienced with this kind of enemy."

A slight jolt interrupted their conversation briefly as the shuttle, now sealed against the hard vacuum of space, separated from the _Ha'Tak_ and moved under reverse thrusters away from the Goa'uld vessel. "Well, I guess we're clear," said the leader with a chuckle. To his comrades he turned and ordered, "You two get on the turrets and hold off those Death Gliders. We're going home, people!"

**Vigilant Watcher, Overbridge**

"Xander, Warren's team is reporting in," said Giles. "They have SG-1 and a Goa'uld hostage with them."

Xander smiled to himself. Warren's team was proving more skilled than he had expected if they could take an enemy prisoner of war as well as recover an Air Force SpecOps team. _I'll have to figure out more missions for them in that capacity if we're going to work more closely with the SGC in the future. Maybe they can even reciprocate in a certain capacity with our particular difficulties. Share and share alike, after all, as the saying goes….especially if we find Hellmouths on other worlds…or another one on Earth…._.

Xander suppressed a sudden chill at the thought of finding another Hellmouth. If both of them opened at the same time, there might not be enough resources to lend towards fighting off the subsequent influx of demonic entities that would be hell-bent on annihilating humanity, even working with the world's military forces as they were bound to do in the foreseeable future. Perhaps he should get together with the world's leaders and develop a planetary evacuation protocol for just such a case as the simultaneous opening of multiple Hellmouths.

_Now where had_ that _thought come from_? Xander wondered.

No matter; the time for entertaining random thought would come. Turning to Buffy, he ordered, "Assign several flights of TIEs to escort the shuttle back; I think we have enough Death Gliders in our hangar bays for study and whatever else. We can destroy the rest of these vermin. Dawn, signal our shuttle to approach the overbridge hangar bay. And have Cordelia come up here; I have a little job that's right up her alley…"

**Overbridge Conference Room**

Willow had insisted that Carlos be taken to a medical facility for treatment as soon as they had arrived on the station, and so it was no surprise that she had missed the initial briefing on Earth's new enemies. Of all the aliens she had ever thought she would encounter in her first opportunity to venture out into space, the Goa'uld seemed like things out of a nightmare. A parasitic species that took over the living body of a host and intertwined its own nervous system directly with the host's, effectively supplanting the host's consciousness with its own, was something that Willow clearly did not wish to encounter.

What gave her greater concern, however, was how to access the medical section nearest the Overbridge. None of them, save for those already in the command and control center, had a clue how to access the information, plus everything was written down in the strange Star Wars alphabet that only ubergeeks like Warren Mears and his ilk would devote themselves to memorizing. The only non-geek that Willow knew would have a solid knack for figuring out this system of writing was Dawn, and she was on the Overbridge as well.

Willow looked over at Carlos and suddenly shrank within herself. His face was stretched taut in a rictus of pain, and his whole body shivered at the effort it took to suppress that pain. Not for nothing did Willow wonder why no-one had found a medical facility for him or even a first aid kit; everyone had been overawed by the reality of being on board the actual Death Star battle station, the planet-killer that had made its claim to fame by blowing up Alderaan. Still, Carlos was in terrible pain from the wound in his leg, and there was only one thing to do about it.

Willow was saved from a babble-inducing moment of anxiety by the sudden arrival of Dawn from the Overbridge. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of Dawn's hair color, as it was now possibly a more brilliant red than her own rosy tresses. Willow soon quashed that thought as Dawn was looking pointedly at Cordelia.

"Xander wants to see you on the Overbridge, Cordelia, immediately," she said to the Sunnydale High head cheerleader. This got Cordelia's usual retort along with a raised eyebrow.

"Unless the Head Doofus in Charge has a thing for girls in cat costumes, which, disturbing much? I would like to get a change of clothes that will help me look at least halfway presentable," she responded with the usual venom in her voice.

"'Fraid it's just uniforms for now, Cordy. You ought to fill it out just fine, though…."

"As if!"

"Dawn…" Willow tried to cut in, unsuccessfully as Queen C was going at full tilt.

"I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those _sad_ gray jumpsuits! Especially after seeing how it looks on you, Captain Coupon! Off the rack and the Cordy so do not go together; I get a rash just looking at them! That rag looks like it was made for old men with bad haircuts!"

"That's 'Admiral' Coupon to you, you upper-class scum!"

"_DAWN!_"

Both turned to Willow, the icy slares from each of them suddenly finding themselves in a close contest with Willow's own furious countenance. "What?!" they each snarled in almost perfect unison.

"We gotta get Carlos to a hospital! There's gotta be one on the station; Tarkin – umm, Xander – Xander said when he was possessed that there was at least one hospital here, so we need to find it, cuz his leg is oozing all sorts of gross, and everyone was all quiet because we were totally gobsmacked, and I really need to stop using Giles-y words now, and we have to get him in Bacta right now and keep it from getting infected, and I'm babbling again, aren't I?"

"Alright, Willow, breathe!" replied an anxious Admiral Dawn Summers; Willow, she knew, could babble a blue streak when she was in a full-on panic mode. "I'll get a ground car over here to get you on the way. Cordy, come with me…"

**Medical Station 381-N3, Sector N-Three, **

About an hour later, Willow was more relieved than ever she had been since the whole Halloween episode began, having seen the 2-1B medical droids tend to Carlos's injury with greater care than ever she had come to expect from all the doctors and medical professionals she had been familiarized with due to her parents' years of experience in psychiatric medicine. They had gently convinced him to strip down to his underwear, then fitted him with a pair of watertight shorts to wear, and then they had fitted him with a nosepiece and a rebreather, just before they carried him to a waiting raised circular platform and chair, into which he was sat. The droids had encouraged him to remain calm while the tank wall was lowered into place, and then the Bacta fluid began to flow into the tank from the cylinder on which Carlos stood. It felt warm and slightly viscous to his bare feet, not at all like the cold water he expected to feel; still, he started slightly when the fluid rose to his chin, and panic began to set in when it made contact with his nose, and then his eyes. It took a moment to realize nothing was getting into his nose or mouth, and when the fluid rose above his eyes he was surprised to understand that they were not being affected. It was like being in a slightly chlorinated pool; he could see, and the fluid did not hurt his eyes, but the blurring effect was more pronounced than that of being in a pool of water.

Carlos was finally calm when the Bacta rose over his head; in fact, he was enjoying the sensation, especially since the agony in his leg had begun to finally subside. Clearly the Bacta had an anaesthetic quality, which helped greatly when the surgical tools were introduced into the tank with him. When they began to work their craft he was surprised to learn that instead of cutting into the surrounding tissue to remove the charred flesh, they were washing away the carbonized tissue before brushing it off. Then the machines began to work at rebuilding his thigh muscles and skin, moving at a speed that had to be seen to be believed. The By that time, the agony of the blaster wound in his leg had been reduced to a mere tickle.

Willow laughed when Carlos looked at her and nodded his pleasure at the experience, giving her a thumbs-up. She settled in for the wait, content to watch the Bacta and the machines and the 2-1B droids do their respective work; about an hour later, the procedure was complete and the tank began to drain. One of the droids emerged from somewhere with a dressing robe and towels to clean the slightly syrupy fluid from Carlos' skin. Now clean, dry and dressed, Carlos looked at his leg and marveled at the wonder of Star Wars medical technology. He flexed his leg to test the rebuilt muscle's strength and found it good, and then he put his weight on the formerly damaged leg, and it, too, was good. He even hopped once or twice on it, and then he started laughing.

"Willow! Come take a look at this; this is so awesome!" he shouted joyously. She went to him and looked in awe as he lifted the hem of his dressing robe to reveal the site where he had been shot; there was nothing there, nothing at all to indicate that anything had ever happened to his leg that night, not even a scar. It was truly marvelous. She looked up at his face and saw his eyes lit with the greatest feeling he had ever felt; he was buzzed. Then she joined in his laughter, happy for now that they could put that bit of unfortunate business behind them.

**Stargate Command, Control Room**

"General Hammond? Message coming in from the Vigilant Watcher…"

General Hammond had been tracking the progress of the space battle from the reports and the satellite tracking from NASA, and so far the crew of the gigantic battle station had proven themselves to be valuable allies; the thousand or so TIE fighters, supposedly automated according to Moff Harris, were making mincemeat of the Death Gliders, and the _Death Star_-class station had taken out the shields of one of the two _Ha'Tak_s and were steadily and swiftly draining the other ship's shields to collapse. The opportunity had presented itself to turn what surely would have been the final defeat of Earth's military forces, and the subsequent enslavement of the human race, into an unprecedented intelligence coup for Earth. The possibility of capturing a Goa'uld attack ship for study and intelligence analysis was just too good now to ignore; even if it meant handing a victory to Kinsey, an idea which Hammond loathed in the extreme given his intense dislike for the man after the Senator's treatment of himself and SG-1, plus his decision to cut all funding to the Stargate Program, the opportunities presented by a thorough analysis of the disabled _Ha'Tak_s would advance human technology by at least a hundred years.

Then again, a thorough analysis of a Death Star would advance human scientific and medical knowledge by at least a thousand years and more…

Hammond cleared his head of these ruminations after hearing MSG Harriman call him over. He walked over to the communications station and looked over Walter's shoulder at the text message displayed on the screen.

"They're rolling out the red carpet for us, Master Sergeant. They're sending down a shuttle to pick us up once they have SG-1. They'll have the details for us when we arrive on board. That what you see?"

"Looks that way, sir. Apparently they managed to send in a team and snatch them out of the Goa'ulds' hands," replied his commo chief. "They even have a surprise for us when we link up on the station."

"I hate surprises…" Hammond groused. He gave it a second's thought, however, taking a long breath in and forcefully exhaling it, taking just as long doing so, and then he spoke. "Still, they say they rescued SG-1, and their invite gives us a chance to look at this battle station up close, _and_ I hope Kinsey and his people never find out about this. Send them a message back, Walter. Tell them we graciously accept their invitation aboard, and we look forward to meeting them face to face at last. Message ends, Walter."

Nodding his assent and his reception of orders, Harriman replied, "Yes, sir, coding now….message sent."

**Gary, Indiana, Office of Senator Robert Kinsey**

"I understand, Mr. President, but we have an obligation to the people of this country to uphold. We absolutely must lay claim to that Death Star before the Russians or the Chinese can. And those raghead infidels in the Middle East think the Mahdi, the so-called Twelfth Imam, has come already, and the rumor mill over there has been going nonstop like nothing we've ever heard since the Iran/Contra affair!...no, sir, our mandate is clear and this is our opportunity to advance our technological base by centuries! We can make the rest of the world safe for democracy within our lifetime, Mr. President, maybe even before the next election…no, I am _not_ over-reaching…history will remember us for how we respond to the Death Star's presence, and how we use its resources, its benefits…no, the Stargate Program is operating against our orders; my committee ordered their funding cut…how dare I, sir? _How dare you?!_ Hello…Hello? Damn…"

Sean Johnson was such a fool, Robert Kinsey thought. He would have had the United States of America, the leader of the free world, going to the commander of the Death Star on bended knee with their hands out. Kinsey's contact in the NID had discreetly informed him that the SGC was operating on their own, in disregard of the Senate Appropriations Committee's decision to cut funding, and that there had been communications between them and the Death Star. Apparently there was a battle going on in the space above the North American continent, between the Death Star and the SGC's co-called "Goa'uld", or as Colonel O'Neill had called the "barbarians at the gate"; Kinsey could almost admire the elaborate deception. It was a plot worthy of Washington, except for the fact that these Goa'uld could not be proven to exist. As far as Kinsey was concerned, it was another excuse to waste the taxpayers' money on that frivolous program.

There had been no benefit to the Stargate Program; no useful technology brought back, no new science, almost nothing that the US could use, and everything that gave Kinsey every reason to mistrust the program. And now a supposedly fictional battle station from the mind of George Lucas had magically appeared in the sky and had nearly caused a panic among the populace. The media had not stopped speculating about the Death Star and the repercussions caused by its presence. But Kinsey saw an opportunity here; if he could gain control of the obviously real space station then he could bypass the SGC entirely, using the Death Star's primary weapon in an industrial capacity. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter contained uncounted thousands of planetoid bodies that could be pulverized in a single blast, the rubble to be collected and ferried back to Earth to be smelted for their mineral wealth. And then it would be on to the stars where untold riches waited to be found….

A phone call to Kinsey's contact in the NID gave the Senator the opening he needed. A shuttle was on its way to collect the SGC commanding general, George Hammond, and his command staff, to take them up to the station. Hopefully the secretive SGC saw the reason why some of the nation's top officials, namely the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee among others, would need to be included in the event. After all, the military was supposed to be under civilian command, and not the other way around, which helped with transparency and accountability to the people they were sworn to serve. Of course, by that logic, if the Stargate Command people, specifically one Air Force Major General and one Air Force Colonel, tried to block his access to the Death Star station, then he, Robert Kinsey, had but to make a few phone calls and convene the Senate in a closed-door session, and then they would begin an inquiry as to why the Stargate Command had continued to operate after all further funding had been revoked.

This all occurred to the Senator in the space of an instant; he hadn't climbed up to the top ranks of the United States Senate by being stupid or thoughtless.

His musings were interrupted by his NID contact, Harry Maybourne.

"Senator? What's your plan?" Maybourne asked from the earpiece of Kinsey's handset.

At length the Senator replied, "Harry, I want to be on that shuttle when it takes off. You send a message to General Hammond telling him to delay the shuttle launch for as long as he can while I get on a plane and get over there as soon as _I_ can. He doesn't do that, then there will be a Senate investigation as to why the SGC has continued to operate without funding from the US Treasury…"

**Assault Shuttle 2432, fifty kilometers from Klorel's ****_Ha'Tak_**

The shuttle turrets were vomiting rivers of plasma at the encroaching Death Gliders, making solid kills every two to three seconds, but for every one, two or more entered the fray. Ethan and Warren were doing their best to keep the shuttle on a generally straight course toward the Vigilant Watcher, but the circumstances of being pursued by alien beings whose every intent was to destroy the shuttle before it could reach the relative safety of the station's inner defense perimeter kept them from flying in a straight line. If they could get close enough, though, then the station's turbolaser and ion batteries would make short work of them. The TIE drones flying close escort for the shuttle were doing their part at whittling away the vast numbers of the Jaffa craft that had broken off their pointless attack on the station to head back to the motherships. Upon seeing a single craft of unknown type flying away from their lord Klorel's ship, and upon seeing the large gaping hole in the ship's hull, they needed no orders from their gods, nor any impetus beyond what had already been provided, and had gone after the shuttle with vengeance in their eyes and utter glee on the part of their respective symbiotes. Jonathan and Andrew had made a good account of themselves, bagging more than fifty Death Glider kills each on the return trip so far, but they weren't out of the proverbial woods yet.

If this kept up, then the Goa'uld would cut them to ribbons before they could cross half the remaining distance to the Watcher's hangar bays. At four hundred kilometers out, it would be an eternity before they would enter the station's gravitational field. At two hundred kilometers from the surface of the massive construct, gravity increased notably the closer one approached the station; all Warren and his team had to do was to cross two hundred more kilometers of hostile space, and then the Watcher's gravity pull would accelerate them beyond the range of the Death Gliders' naqadah cannons…

Then the hard part would come….

**Vigilant Watcher, Overbridge**

Cordelia was out of her element; at Sunnydale High she was queen of the social scene, the paragon of high fashion and status who suffered no fool easily or gladly. All who would challenge her on campus, be they student or faculty, had but to hear the acid tongue of Queen C and they were put firmly in their place lest they hear the dread words 'Daddy's lawyer', but here on the Death Star, it was clear to her that she was _not_ in the head bitch in charge, and that the self-proclaimed "King of Cretins", the doofus extraordinaire Xander Harris, most certainly was, minus the obvious gender qualification. The fact that she was standing before him, wearing an Imperial officer's uniform now and wondering what he had in mind for her, rather than she sitting in the command seat with that obvious smirk on her face instead of his spoke volumes to that fact.

She stood there, just inside the entryway, for a good minute before she began her latest tirade in true Queen C style.

"Big whoop, doofus. Big whoop. You got this ginormous planet-killing battle station, you dressed as the man who pulled the trigger on Alderaan and its billions of people, and you've got a huge shit-eating grin on your face…"

"Watch your language, Cordelia Chase!" Giles all but shouted suddenly at her use of profanity from over at Comm-Scan, but his voice wasn't the one that sent a shiver up her spine. The glare from Xander more than made up for it as his moment of ironic introspection was well and truly shattered.

"That is not among the more pleasant memories of Moff Tarkin that I have to live with, Cordelia, and I'll thank you to never bring up the subject again," he fired back in an icy calm voice that parleyed his utter disgust with her latest verbal indiscretion. "Yes, I _was_ reflecting on how the tables had indeed turned for the two of us until you decided, and quite rudely in true Queen C style, I might add, to begin our little conversation at a time of your choosing. I hope I don't have to remind you of the consequences of suggesting that this station's primary weapon be used for any reason other than my own and the most dire circumstances?"

That had shut up the teenaged socialite quite handily, judging from her wide eyes and quietly shuddering breath. Her response, clearly, was atypical of her, a single word in the negative.

Cordelia could only manage a subdued whisper as she said, "No."

"I'm relieved you said that, Cordy," Xander replied, nodding his head ever so slightly in his approval. "I was soon to finish my ruminaitons in quite short order had you not expedited that with your brutally honest, um, observation, and I had figured out what qualifications you met to serve as my new Chief of Security, but I think you just gave me another reason to give you the posting." He took a moment to pause and sigh, not for dramatic effect, although it did certainly have that impact. Narrowing his eyes, Xander resumed his speech. "You have a public face, Cordy, and you are, as I indicated, brutally honest with people; it is not in your nature to tell a lie. By that logic, it would seem that politics and the Cordy do not mix. Well, they're about to start making with the mixy…Commander."

"Commander?"

"I trust you heard me correctly? I need a crew, and I need able-bodied, willing officers to serve with me on this station. I have had a vision, a goal in mind, while our retrieval team has been out there rescuing the Air Force guys, and it's going to take everyone working together to make it happen. Which, by the way, Buffy?"

"Xander?" the Slayer replied from the tactical station. "Shuttle 2432 is about two hundred kilometers away from the station, if my reading is accurate. That should give them about two minutes to pass through the magnetic field, another thirty seconds from there to the inner defense perimeter, then we can guide them in freely. They'll still have Death Gliders on their asses, but…"

"Instruct them to come in at full power, don't worry about the range. I have an idea to reel them in safe, and I need you to take the chair for that time, as I'll be going off your cues."

"'Splainy?" queried the redoubtable Slayer.

"You'll have it once Cordelia and I get to the Overbridge Hangar Bay, Buff. In the meantime, tell Warren and his boys to adjust their course so that they cross perpendicular with their previously intended landing path. Those words exactly, milady. Tell them once they adjust to roll so that the station is below their relative horizon, and then stand by for further instruction and we'll have them back in a flash."

"Very good, Xander, sending your message."

Cordy lifted one perfectly sculpted eyebrow in reaction to the exchange as well as to Buffy's presence on the bridge as a key participant to this elaborate operation. "You got Slay Girl working for you too?"

"Let's just go, Cordelia…" said Xander, already heading toward the Overbridge doors as he spoke.

**Overbridge Hangar Bay Control Room, one minute later…**

Xander seated himself in the tractor beam operator's chair, familiarizing himself with the various control systems inherent to the landing officer's task. Interlacing his fingers and pushing out his palms to loosen his knuckles with the familiar popping sounds not only prepared his hands and fingers for the task of capturing the Imperial _Lambda_-class assault shuttle with the tractor beam, but cleared his mind to an extent. He needed his mind and body calm and steady to handle the absolute precision this evolution required. First he opened a comm line to the Overbridge.

"Buffy, are you tracking our shuttle now?"

"They're making their prescribed maneuver now, Xander. Twenty seconds until they cross the magnetic field," Buffy's voice replied over the connection.

"Alright, then," Xander responded as he punched controls and looked over his instruments, " I'm powering up the tractor beam system, going through diagnostic checks…tractor beam is green and ready to fire. Magnetic containment fields are in place at one hundred percent strength, atmosphere is clean with no toxins present, ready to be pumped into the storage hold. Buffy, inform the shuttle that when they land they need to stay on board until we have atmosphere for them."

"Message sent," said the Slayer after just a second. "They've got a ton of Death Gliders on their aft section, Xander; I'm intensifying forward turbolaser batteries in that quadrant to compensate," she added with a small measure of concerned curiosity.

"Ok, Buff, stay on it," Xander replied. _Must be a Slayer thing…_ he commented internally. To Cordelia, he said, "Once we have a hard seal and good atmosphere in the bay, I want you to greet them when they get off the shuttle. Part of your job as Security Chief is to be the first face everyone sees who first boards this station; essentially you're a tour guide. Think of it as experience for the whole acting gig, Queen C…"

"You are a doofus of the first order, Xander Harris…" Cordelia fumed.

"But I'm your doofus…" said Xander with a wink….

"The shuttle, dumbass!"

**Assault Shuttle 2432, two hundred kilometers from Vigilant Watcher**

The last message from the station did not sit well with Warren. Moff Harris's plan to get them back aboard the station was a crazy, half-baked idea from the get-go, but it was the only one anyone could come up with on such short notice, and they were swiftly running out of time for a plan B.

The plan called for the shuttle to describe a perpendicular course across their previously-planned landing path, which would turn into a loop along said perpendicular course. At the moment when their relative orientation placed them nose-on with their assigned hangar bay, they were to put all power into the sublights for a half second as the tractor beam took hold, then cut engine power completely, and let their momentum and the pull of the tractor beam take them into the station without the Death Gliders even knowing what had happened. Warren and Ethan were to stand by with their fingers on the controls ready to throw everything they had into reverse thrusters once they passed through the hangar bay doors; they would only have an instant to kill their momentum if they didn't want to paste themselves and SG-1 all over the inside bulkhead of the hangar bay. They only had one shot at it, though, as the stresses on both the shuttle's hull and the tractor beam systems would be extreme. A second attempt would see either the shuttle or the hangar's tractor beam system torn to pieces from the shear forces endured.

Right now, though, Warren and Ethan were taxing the shuttle's reaction control thrusters to their uttermost in their attempt to avoid being blown out of the stars by a thousand tons of multiple hostile fighter craft. It was preferable to being dead. Dead people couldn't enjoy the finer things in life, both pilot and co-pilot agreed, and once the shuttle was flying on that perpendicular, their path would have to be straight and true, something that the theory of evasive combat action soundly ridiculed. The more likely possibility, of course, was not that of ridicule once they began their suicidal run, but having to rely more on their rear-firing turrets and the hundreds of escort fighters shooting anything that found its way into their firing solution. Flying a straight path over the superstructures on the surface of the battle station meant the shuttle was a sitting duck.

The shuttle's path showed itself on the pilot station's central display as a single curve, arcing away from their current position and describing a gentle semicircle toward the overbridge immediately north of the superlaser dish. At equal intervals along that course, rectangles showed their recommended orientation relative to the station as a lazy half spin that put the Watcher below the shuttle's relative horizon in preparation for the grab-and-yank portion of the landing process.

TIE drones flew all around in groups of three, dealing death to the Jaffa that flew those hostile craft and blasting their ships to smithereens with only one or two shots from their fire-linked laser cannons. The drones had a distinct advantage over the Death Gliders, having no living organic pilots to suffer gravity induced loss of consciousness (G-LOC in the parlance of the surface naval aviators), and so they were flying circles around their targets and pulling off maneuvers that any organic pilot would have to have seen in order to believe. Any drone that found a Death Glider attempting to lock on to its rear quarter simply spun on its vertical axis while still flying forward, and then firing its lasers into the target's hull and obliterating it. This took a great burden off the shoulders of the Stormtroopers manning the shuttle's turrets, but it still wasn't quite enough yet.

One hundred fifty kilometers from the station, the shuttle passed through the outer magnetic field, juking and jerking wildly along their course in order to continue being unshot. Time was drawing short though as the surface of the Vigilant Watcher grew ever nearer; Andrew and Jono were good shots, and during the eternity-long flight back to the station had managed to keep their current conveyance from being hit even once, but five hundred kilometers each way to the _Ha'Tak_ and back was a long trip, and fatigue could still set in while the Jaffa pilots of the Death Gliders dogging their heels and hoping for a good bite were virtual unknowns. At at some point when relying on Lady Luck to work her magic, one learned not to rely on her overmuch, and it was a lesson often learned the hard way.

Lady Luck had a habit of becoming a real bitch to those who kept coming to her with their hands out.

At one hundred twenty kilometers from the station, Lady Luck chose this moment to get picky as a "lucky" shot from one of the Death Gliders struck the shields just in the right spot, and enough of the plasma got through to hit the starboard turret, knocking it out of commission and scorching the armor of Andrew Wells.

"AAAAH! SHIT!" Jono saw Andrew get thrown back across the hold to land squarely in the middle of SG-1, his armor blackened and stinking with melted plastoid. Fortunately none of the damage was deep enough to warrant immediate first aid, but the armor had had it. At Colonel O'Neill's urging, Carter and Teal'c went to work removing the surprisingly cooperative stormtrooper suit. Seeing then that his squadmate was in good hands for the interim, Jonathon Levinson dashed over to the starboard turret and began diagnostic procedures in order to service and repair the weapon system. That left the port turbolaser turret unmanned, so Daniel, with nothing to do at the moment and all the urgency of one who needed to keep his friends alive, jumped up to take over, ignoring the increased pounding of the naqadah cannons against their shields, taking a moment to familiarize himself with the controls and then seizing the control yoke and pressing the firing studs with a vengeance not heretofore known in the mind of the archaeologist.

Barely ten seconds passed before Daniel had scored his first Death Glider kill.

"Way to go, Space Monkey!" crowed Jack.

"Great job down there! Don't get cocky, now!" a pleased Warren Mears added, having felt the urge to channel Han Solo just then.

One hundred kilometers remained of their flight when the Vigilant Watcher's Taim and Bak D-6 turbolaser batteries opened up on the remaining Death Gliders; the shuttle had reached the inner defense perimeter, and Warren and Ethan had their cue to make the first turn.

"Ethan, adjust course to bearing three-zero-zero, mark zero, and begin a slow starboard roll to ninety degrees," said Warren, confident now that the heat was off of them at last. Ethan's nod of assent accompanied his turning of the control yoke to steer the shuttle in the prescribed manner. On the central display, their course began to match the diagram's recommended path, the rectangles along the path rotating to match the shuttle's orientation at each interval.

"Shuttle 2432 to Watcher," Warren signaled, having previously opened a channel to the Overbridge, "we're on final approach, would you kindly open up the barn door for us? We're coming in hot."

"2432, this is Overbridge Hangar Control," said Moff Harris over the communications array, "atmosphere recovered and magnetic field is open, so come on in. Be advised that hangar shall be depressurized at time of landing, how copy?"

"2432 to Control, good copy. Please advise, we are still being pursued by hostile fighters. Starboard rearward gun turret is offline and nonfunctional from enemy weapons fire. Shields are holding, but they won't last long if we catch some more of this heat before we land, how copy, Control?"

"Five by five," said the Moff, "Continue on course and prepare for tractor lock-on. Remember, we're only gonna get one shot at this, even as clichéd as that sounds, guys, so look sharp and keep your hands on the sublights…"

"Will do, Control, 2432 clear…"

**Vigilant Watcher, Overbridge Hangar Bay Control Room**

On the central display, Xander and Cordelia were tracking the shuttle's approach with quivering breath; at less than one hundred kilometers out, Warren and his boys could quite literally lean out the cockpit window and spit across the distance to the outer hull of the battle station. The pilots of those few Death Gliders that were left, out of the group that initially began their pursuit of the rescue party, had to be a hardy bunch, having survived the shuttle's turret defense and later, the Vigilant Watcher's turbolaser barrage, and it was to their credit and that of the false gods they served that they were so skilled and had lived long enough to gain the experience of veteran pilots. They were currently dogging the stern of the assault shuttle, making multiple passes now to try and cut them off from their destination, but the skill of the shuttle's primary pilot, combined with the reflexes and situational awareness of those individuals manning the laser turrets, were sufficient to make the Jaffa pilots think twice about getting too close to their target. Slow though the _Lambda_-class variant was, it still had a sufficiently minimal silhouette that was hard to line up for a good kill shot. Plus it seemed that from the ongoing camera footage of the firefight steadily progressing, that the naqadah cannons on the Death Gliders had to be aimed manually by line of sight rather than by instrument; the rear-firing turrets on the _Lambda_-class had no such limitations…

Xander opened a channel to the Overbridge above. "Buffy, this is Xander; power up the D-Six turbolaser batteries lining the trench to our hangar. "

The voice of the Slayer currently manning the command chair came over the comlink, "I hear you, Xander; there's still quite a few Death Gliders on their back quarter." After a second she added, "Turbos are online, tracking and firing; they just took down two of the enemy ships, and a couple more just slammed into one of the shield deflection towers in the city sprawl northwest of here. Guess Warren and his boys must be pulling off some fancy flying out there. You got that tractor beam powered up? They're about ten kilometers away from entering the trench."

"City sprawls, huh?" piped in Cordelia. "When we get done with this I want to check out what shopping malls this thing has…"

"Gonna have to wait until we have Warren and SG-1 back aboard, Cordy; they're about five clicks out right now, about to enter the trench. Gonna get pretty tight in there…"

**Shuttle 2432, approaching trench to Overbridge hangar bay**

The shuttle rolled and yawed as it neared the hangar bay; the Jaffa fighters had to corkscrew and reverse in their manic efforts to keep up and acquire a proper firing solution, even as they began to fight the effects of the immense space station's gravity well. As the fight moved closer to the shuttle's destination, the ships edged ever closer to the surface; the shuttle's course drew it towards the surface at a steep angle to the station's hull initially, then began to gently level out until the shuttle was almost skimming the surface at a five-degree gradient approaching the Overbridge hangar bay. At one thousand meters and descending, the shuttle had now to almost totally depend on the turbolaser towers lining the short, twenty-five-kilometer-long trench just north of the superlaser dish. Warren's skill and Ethan's luck and desire to survive allowed them to pull of some clever maneuvering that placed several of those towers directly, fatally, in the path of several of Apophis's veteran warriors.

The shuttle descended into the trench, its tail section lit green from the backscatter of the turbolaser bolts that crisscrossed the space within just microseconds after it passed. The Jaffa craft that sped on after the shuttle weren't so lucky, getting caught frequently in one firing arc or another and turning into flaming scrap that scattered itself along the floor of the trench with almost the same speed as before their sudden demise. Inertia provided a spectacularly grim show for anyone who happened to see, the number of which by the time the Trio and SG-1 approached to within one kilometer of the hangar bay, could now be counted on one human hand.

In the shuttle's cockpit, Ethan was minding his display which showed the exact range and distance to the hangar, calling out every five hundred meters. At seven hundred meters, two things happened. First, Warren cut out the sublight engines and fed full power briefly to the reaction control system, enabling the shuttle to roll backwards on its horizontal axis akin to a racing technique known on Earth as drifting. Secondly, the shuttle's momentum and inertia took it just past the Overbridge Hangar Bay, and Warren then pushed the sublight engines to instant full power for a brief half-second. The thrust carried the shuttle out of the trench and into open space just past the hangar bay, while the first of the three surviving Death Gliders zipped past, free of the tractor beam that had just then been activated. The errant Glider pilot pulled a Tokyo-worthy drifting maneuver that brought the pilot face-on with his fellow warriors, just in time to see the tractor briefly snag one of them. The poor unlucky fool whose ship was briefly influenced by the tractor beam careened out of control, impacting first on one wall of the trench, then the other, before disintegrating completely in a ball of fire and scrap metal.

His colleague in the other Death Glider joined him only a moment after…

**Overbridge Hangar Bay Control Room**

Cordy had to admit, after seeing Star Wars for the first time, that she got a thrill more from the trench run of the Death Star than from any other point in the course of the film. The speed, the dogfighting between snub fighters, the crashes and explosions nearly got her panting with the adrenaline rush. It paled in comparison with what she was witnessing from the video footage of the cameras lining the hangar trench. The speed of each craft to pass by was blinding, and with each crash Cordy felt the local area of the battle station shudder slightly, just enough to throw her momentarily off balance. From the films one saw and heard; here, in the real thing, one saw, heard, and felt. Nothing did the experience justice. If the atmosphere hadn't been pumped out of the hangar just prior to dropping the magnetic containment field, there would have been a thunderous report accompanying each impact of a fighter on the hull, like no television set or sound system could ever produce.

Over the comlink, Buffy's voice rang out, "Tractor, tractor, tractor!" Xander's hand then zipped over to the activation toggle button and slapped it. The whine of energy being fed into the tractor beam system was comforting to Xander's ears as it was energizing to his spirit, and he looked at the display to notice an alien fighter pass just out of the projection cone.  
"SHIT!", cried Xander as he realized his error. Fortunately the beam hadn't had more than a toehold on the craft when it slipped and began to tumble, eventually impacting on the trench wall twice before finally burning up. Collecting his thoughts only moments later, Xander realigned the tractor emitter to catch the shuttle. Timing was essential, after all….

**Shuttle 2432**

"On my mark, full power to the sublights for one half-second, then shut it down cold! Ready, Ethan?"

As Warren turned the shuttle around to face the hangar opening, Ethan manipulated the engines to give them just what Warren Mears wanted, and his mind and body were now focused for the hard task ahead. The tractor beam from the Watcher had them now; it was just a matter of timing in order to get the job done right, and this task could only be pulled off once else they would end up a smear all over the back wall of the hangar bay.

To say Warren Mears was nervous about their chances of getting this right was the understatement of the standard year. His memories as a Stormtrooper commando told him that TIE pilots did this sort of thing all the time, and every one of them was nervous as shit, every single time. But this was no small fighter craft with a lot of engine and a lot of blaster, this was a big boxy shuttlecraft. As Ethan shut down the engines, Warren would have to fold the wings up and drop the landing struts right before touchdown, which would be a tricky prospect at best. From his memories even the stormtrooper hadn't pulled off something so crazy as this. Not even a carrier landing at night in pitching seas and hurricane winds was this crazy; Warren was not only getting literally yanked into a hangar bay in the fucking Death Star, he was helping to do it by stomping on the gas pedal. If even one person fucked up on this, there would be no Four Wire for him to catch…  
"Three…..two….one….MARK!"

Inertial damping be damned; they were slammed into their seats from the push of the sublights and the immense pull of the tractor beam, provided generously by seven Phylon tractor beam generators in the local sector.

**Overbridge Hangar Bay Control Room**

Xander's hand shot out and covered one of the more important controls in the tractor beam system, one which reversed the poliarity of the beam and turned it into a repulsor. It was very handy in helping heavy ships get off the surface and away from the station when it was still known as the Death Star. It would be most helpful now in arresting the forward momentum of Shuttle 2432 at the instant Warren and the others passed through the atmosphere containment field. Xander's other hand, he suddenly realized, could not quite reach the activation toggle button.

"Cordy? See that button I'm pointing at? When I say, and not an instant later, I want you to press it. I gotta eyeball this…"

"Hey, maybe you can read loser-ese, but I can't," replied the socialite.

"It's a black toggle button just in reach of your arm, the one that's lit up red inside. The instant I say, I want you to press that switch and turn off that red light."

Queen C found the button Herr Doofus described, and her hand poised over it, a panther's paw ready to pounce on its prey. She looked at Xander, then out past the hangar bay, out into space as the Earth slowly became visible beyond. She saw the shuttle streaking toward them, and even as far away as it was, she could tell it was coming in faster than anything she'd ever seen.

For his part, Xander decided to time the beam reversal with the instant the shuttle's wings started to fold upwards. Then it would be a moderate three-count from there to shutdown so as not to throw the shuttle back out into space. If it went right, the shuttle would hover nice and easy over the landing pad with zero momentum.

He watched the shuttle as it approached, and suddenly the wings began to move upward like a hawk-bat preparing to roost. He slapped the polarity reversal and watched the feedback display to ensure there wasn't anything wrong. Xander then counted silently to himself, "One….two….three," and then to Cordelia he shouted "DO IT!"

As she flicked the button and extinguished its inner light, the invisible tractor beam released its hold on the shuttle, which by now had folded its wings up fully and extended its landing struts, and was now settling on repulsorlift thrust to make contact with the floor of the hangar bay…

At the same time, Xander rushed over to another set of controls and pressed a short series of buttons, the end result of which was for them to see a set of heavy doors slam shut, concealing the hangar bay from view and, more likely, from attack. The timing could not have been more perfect, as a pair of hard thumps were suddenly and immediately felt throughout the hangar.

Xander looked at Cordelia then, and he suddenly let out the breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"We got 'em, Cordy. We did it…" he said, in between gasps of relief.


	14. Et tú, Machiavelli?

Et tu, Machiavelli?

_Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or the Buffy/Stargate/Star Wars triumvirate...bugger..._

**Stargate Command**

"What's the status of SG-2 right now?" Hammond asked.

"Sir," Walter said, "they're currently prepping to receive the Alpha Site teams when they arrive. There's also a message from the Watcher, they say their recovered SG-1 plus one Goa'uld EPW and Master Bra'Tac."

"Now that _IS_ excellent news, Master Sergeant; tell the Alpha Site teams to stand down, and send a message to the Watcher congratulating them on a job well done. I look forward to meeting them onboard the station." Hammond was relieved that the operation had been a success, and the bonus of encountering the old Jaffa master and rebel leader, to use a euphemism, and capturing one Goa'uld was the cherry on top of the fudge sundae that this day promised to become.

"There's actually a bit of bad news on that front, General; we can't leave yet, not until Senator Kinsey arrives to board the shuttle with us, and he's on his way in a Gulfstream from his office in Indiana…"

The O-8's shoulders slumped just slightly at that letdown; this was a political move, pure and simple, and Kinsey was coming determined to find out why the SGC was continuing to operate without further funding from the Appropriations Committee. Technically, this was true, but emergency circumstances such as the Vigilant Watcher's arrival, plus the threat of a Goa'uld invasion, did not respect the national budget, and Hammond was forced to keep the lights on regardless of orders.

Kinsey, though, would not care about any of that, and everyone in Stargate Command, especially its commanding general, knew it.

"Damn…." swore the Texan _sotto voce_. After a half minute Hammond composed himself as best he could, and in a normal voice he stated, "Walter, you know I don't like the man one bit, but he is a Senator and as such outranks even me, so I want you to advise Feretti and his team that they are to assemble in the briefing room in one hour. I want them on the shuttle with us when Kinsey and his bunch arrive. And relay our situation to the Watcher, if you'd be so kind…" Almost as an afterthought, he added, "When you're done with that, contact NASA and see what the Hubble can show us up there; I want to be kept up to date on their situation. They kept us from having to launch our nukes, and they kept Earth going for a while yet, so as far as I'm concerned, those people up there are our allies."

He neglected to mention the other half of his position, and George Hammond would be damned if anyone else saw that on one level, he'd had the same idea as the not-so-good Senator. Not with the flag-planting part, after all, but in using their new allies' capabilities to the utmost. Generals, after all, did not earn their stars without learning to think like politicians on one level, and like soldiers on another. He knew when to channel Mother Theresa, and when to think like Niccolo Machiavelli. Right now Hammond certainly understood what Machiavelli would think when presented with such a unique opportunity as the presence of the Vigilant Watcher.

Alliances served a purpose of convenience; specifically, when mutual benefit was crucial to building lasting friendships, windows opened through which one could peer into the ally's house and unlock their secrets. Part of a general officer's job was the keeping and stealing of secrets. Then again, so was a politician's….

**Local space near Vigilant Watcher **

Between the two Goa'uld _Ha'Tak_s and the gargantuan battle station, the sheer number of fighters appeared as so many insects in space, albeit insects with minds and furies of their own, as they chased and shot at each other, the Jaffa piloting the Death Gliders with fanatic zeal and utter devotion to their perceived deities, the other with cold logical programming that said 'eliminate all targets'. Neither could the droid TIEs deviate from their programming nor the Jaffa from their holy mission. And to add to the confusion and chaos of the firefight, the _Ha'Tak_ that hosted the Supreme System Lord Apophis, favored of Ra, was still pouring plasma fire at the Vigilant Watcher's hull, pockmarking it in small, negligible spots and adding to the death toll of its own Jaffa pilots; Apophis would not allow his followers to be taken by the enemy and subverted against him.

The Goa'uld fighters were limited in their maneuvering capacity by the living, fragile bodies of the Jaffa piloting them, and against opponents that could fly backwards and fire on their pursuers, that could turn tighter and faster than living pilots, firing green plasma bolts that wore down their shields more quickly to the point of collapse than they had ever experienced…they had little chance, if any. And even though the drone fighters had no shielding, they were far more numerous, more than a thousand to the Jaffas' several hundred, and they attacked every single Death Glider in tight formations of three or more. What the Jaffa didn't know was that the TIE drones siphoned their energy directly from the limited stellar light available as well as from the battle station that charged them in their cradles before deployment, whereas the Jaffa craft ran on a limited energy reserve derived from their own power cells and could not continually recharge themselves during an engagement. And for the Jaffa, there was no thought of flight from the engagement zone; the gods punished cowardice with slow torture, followed by an equally slow death, as an object lesson to those that would further defy them. And somehow, the Tau'ri had decided that they had captured enough of the enemy, having decided at some point to destroy the rest.

For the servants of Apophis and Klorel fighting here in space, it was clear that they had been sent to their deaths. _Our deaths are glory to Apophis, and to his mighty son Klorel,_ was the common though in the minds of every single pilot that met his or her end above the Tau'ri homeworld. _We are your Jaffa. Gladly and freely do we give our lives in your service and for your purpose…So may it be…_

**Vigilant Watcher, Overbridge**

"The last Death Glider had been neutralized, Xander," reported Buffy from the command chair. "Commencing final ion bombardment of both Goa'uld motherships…"

Buffy imagined that out in space, the battle station was trading broadsides with the alien ships in the old style of the wooden seagoing man-of-war ships that flew the flags of the British Empire, France, Spain, and the Netherlands, among other nations. She saw frigates and tenders trading cannon shots, the iron balls propelled by a powder charge to smash into target ships' hulls, with crews standing by, ducking down under the gunwales and ready to swing across the water and board the other. That part of her that was increasingly Lady Elizabeth, though she knew next to nothing about naval combat tactics and strategy, had sailed on enough of her father's frigates and dreadnaughts to have seen a naval battle once or twice, and as terrifying as the experience had been to her noble-born alter ego, it had also been quite the fascinating experience as well. Since the Lady Elizabeth had arrived in the American Colonies, she had dedicated herself to the study of her father's craft of war upon the high seas. Out here in the cold of space, the difference was far more vast, for as much as the fighters swarming around each other in the recently-ended furball had resembled insects, compared to the overwhelming size and vastness of the Death Star that she and her fellow Scoobies called the Vigilant Watcher, the two Goa'uld attack ships resembled specks of dust even more so. Within five minutes the engagement had ended, with both enemy vessels dead in space, their power reserves almost immediately depleted following the collapse of their shields.

Just as the final tally was recorded by the Watcher's instruments, the double doors opened, revealing Xander, Cordelia, and Warren and his boys, followed by a group of four individuals the likes of which she had never seen. Upon recognizing Xander Buffy immediately stood from the command chair, stepping to its side to formally relinquish command back to the rightful commanding officer.

_Damn that aristocrat of a Lord's and Admiral's daughter, and her insistence on protocol!_ Buffy cursed inwardly. She bowed slightly at the waist, however, when Xander approached her to accept his post once again.

"You do good work, Commander Summers," he said jovially as he took in the displays around the Overbridge and their wealth of data. "You just Slayed your first two starships." Her reaction to his statement was surprisingly subdued, at least to him; whereas before Buffy Summers would have been hopping with glee and giggling as though she were her even more diminutive grammar school self, after the chaos spell had broken, the Lady Elizabeth's manners and attitudes had tempered her glee with noble reserve. Xander took in her subsequent curious glance at the Air Force team and added, "May I present our rescuees, the Air Force group designated SG-1? The tall gray-haired man is Colonel Jack O'Neill, the woman is his Executive Officer, Captain Samantha Carter, the civilian with the glasses is Doctor Daniel Jackson, an archaeologist who specializes in Ancient Egypt, and…" looking at the big black man with the staff, "let me see if I have this right…Teal'C? With an apostrophe?"

"You are correct, Grand Moff," said he, inclining his head ever so slightly. Buffy noted with added curiosity the gold emblem affixed to his forehead, as though the gold had actually been poured there in its molten state.

Regarding the rest of SG-1, however, Buffy could not but take notice of the astonished looks adorning each individual face. She'd seen that look a hundred times among those who had inadvertently learned of her mystical calling; each had wondered how someone so young could handle the extreme responsibility of being the sold guardian of humanity against all the forces of the myriad Hells in existence. The Lady Elizabeth had also seen it many times on the faces of those men who had been rendered speechless by her intuitive grasp of naval combat tactics in her time. Normally they'd have been right, as most women of Elizabeth's time were thoroughly indoctrinated into thinking there was no greater or more glorious purpose in their existence than to marry a member of the nobility and bear their sons, and to see that a young woman of excellent breeding and sophistication could show up even the most experienced and skilled naval tactician to serve the Crown was a feat beyond measure. Aside from the Colonel, the whole of SG-1 wisely kept their lips pressed together.

"OK, um, somebody tell me I'm hearing this right….Grand Moff? Commander? Doesn't anyone here, aside from the Englishman standing down there in that pit, think that these people look just a little too young to be in command of a ginormous planet-bashing battle station?"

The aforementioned Englishman then calmly strode out of the pit and around the command chair where Xander had taken his seat, regarding the SG-1 troopers with an expression that blended curious analysis with a paternal glare. The young Moff might have been in command here on this station, O'Neill realized, but it was this man that they all looked to for advice and wisdom. Giles's gaze fell finally on the O-7, and he stood there before him finally. He could have challenged the Colonel's statement, had he been as generous with his information now as in his youth, but the Watcher decided that their confrontation required a bit more civility.

"Colonel O'Neill," he said, "I would assume a man such as yourself does not rise to your rank by being either blind or slow-witted. These teenagers you see before you…"

"Teenagers?!" blurted out the members of SG-1 almost in unison, save for the big Jaffa…

"If we can all endeavor to keep the outbursts to a minimum?" replied Giles. "It was an accident of Fate, to put it simply, that permitted this construct to come into being, and allowed these young men and women to acquire the skills and experience requisite to the demands of operating it. For their part, they conducted an operation that not only rescued the four of you, but potentially saved this whole planet from destruction and subsequent subjugation by these Goa'uld, as you call them. Were it not for this accident, the details of which I'm sure you'll wish to hear at some point, those ships out there would be raining fire down on the surface at this time instead of being dead in space."

"You don't say…" quipped Jack. "But what you are saying, I think, is that not only we, but about six billion people, give or take a few thousand, now owe their lives to a few teenagers and their privately owned weapon of mass destruction. That sum it up pretty much?"

"Just so."

"Colonel," said a bewildered Sam Carter just then, "this has to be impossible; a construct of this size can't be controlled by only a few teenagers with neither the skill nor the technical knowledge required to run it. Judging by the size alone, you would need a crew of close to a million people. This doesn't even bring into account how the station can even maintain its position. The amount of reaction force required to move it even a fraction of a respectable distance would depend on a fuel demand that is simply astronomical…"

"Not so difficult to believe as you might think, Captain," interjected Xander. "The fuel cells, as massive as they have to be to run a station this size, are very much capable of recharging themselves on a continual basis, and the electrical load is supplied by a number of fusion reactors and reaction chambers where matter and hypermatter combine in equal proportions, to control the reaction and guarantee a constant flow of energy. It's the same process that powers the station's primary weapon…"

The looks of utter confusion borne by their faces to Xander were priceless. He could clearly hear them mumble the word "hypermatter" in tones of bewilderment and outright disbelief, and he had thought of explaining how hypermatter was harvested for such a massive undertaking. From her speech, Carter sounded like a top-notch physicist, whereas O'Neill was the grizzled CO that was ever ready with a witty remark for any given situation. Good for morale, not so much for discipline. If he were Tarkin right now instead of Xander Harris, he'd probably wager about a hundred Imperial credits that his own commander, this General Hammond that Xander had yet to meet, probably viewed Jack O'Neill as the source of any number of migraines other than the Goa'uld and the US Congress. He knew this well because he had enjoyed the same relationship with Buffy's Watcher; as many times as Giles complained about being called "G-Man", one had to realize it was done purely out of a sort of surrogate father's admiration for the son he wished he could have had.

On that last note, Xander mused, if the computers on board the Vigilant Watcher were even half as powerful as he imagined they were, then he could link wirelessly to the terminals in the California Bureau of Records and have his paternal name changed to Giles. As proud as he was to be called a Harris, his drunken abomination of a father had long ago squandered that pride as well as his right to be called Father.

And Xander would by no means start calling himself Alexander Tarkin; that was just asking for all sorts of Hellmouthy trouble, whether one chose to call it a jinx or a curse, or otherwise. He resolved himself to see it through eventually, and to do it right, as it would be the height of rudeness to suddenly, and with no forewarning, declare himself the heir apparent of Rupert Edmund Giles. But regardless of all that, he knew it would have to be before he graduated from High School at the very latest. He just needed to figure out how to get his so-called 'parents' to sign the forms…

The archaeologist took this moment to make his voice heard. "Excuse me, but are you by chance the Rupert Giles that used to work for the British Museum, in Room 51?"

Having some of his earlier work mentioned by someone who clearly was an admirer and a colleague, not that Giles cared overmuch for accolades and the like, he looked Doctor Jackson in the face and beamed, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am…"

"Oh, good," Jackson smiled, his eyes lighting up at the chance to hash over their respective specialties. "Then you would be the one that published a research paper on the supernatural legends of Ancient Egypt."

"It earned me my doctorate, as I recall…"

This sudden exchange between two apparent "bone and scroll geeks", as Jack O'Neill referred to all dusty professor types, was not lost on him. Daniel had inadvertently just blown this crew's cover. He leaned over his bespectacled friend and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Can we have a quiet word?"

"Jack, I was just about to ask Doctor Giles about his thesis and…"

"Now, please…" Jack interjected pointedly. He turned his gaze to Giles then and added, "Excuse us, but us military types need to confer with our civilian colleague…"

The latter regarded the former with a blink and a brief widening of the eyes, clearly recognizing that this conversation was outside his remit. "Ah, yes. Well, if you must…"

"We definitely must, 'Doctor' Giles…"

Jack and Daniel stepped over to an unused corner of the Overbridge, Jack's hand on Daniel's upper arm in an insistent grip. Once they stopped, Jack looked over his shoulder, ensuring that none of the bridge crew were in a position to overhear, and looked the archaeologist squarely in the eyes.

"They're from Earth, Danny. _OUR_ Earth."

"Jack, I get that, but if we can establish a rapport with these people there's no telling what we could do for each other…" Jackson replied hastily…

"And you're not getting the clue here!" Jack added in a heated stage-whisper. "We're standing on board the frigging Death Star. _The. Death. Star._ From the films. Where is the rest of the crew? There should be a hell of a lot more, but they're strangely absent. And why didn't they just blast the Goa'uld with that big honking planet-buster laser of theirs?"

"I've read the stories too and seen all the extra stuff; they'd have to fire twice to get them both, and there's no chance in hell they could fire a second time without stopping for a whole day to recharge it. The other ship would run scared; they'd be long gone by now!" Jackson cut in defensively.

"How'd they deploy all those fighters? No pilots, what I heard, so they must be automated, but who's programming them all? It can't be just one or two people…"

"So the programming has to be rather broad in scope, orders going to whole wings or squadrons rather than individual ships, and the droid brains in each ship determine their specific roles in the operation from those orders. I don't see how that's not entirely feasible; this whole station might somehow be fully automated and run only from here on the Overbridge."

Daniel's explanation had a clear effect on Jack O'Neill; his expression suddenly registered mild surprise as he listened to those words. "OK, there's that….so how did the station get here? Who built it?"

"The Extended Universe books say it was built over the prison colony world of Despayre, which was later destroyed during the Death Star's first test of its planet buster weapon, but we know that was in another galaxy, which doesn't exist as part of the real universe…." Jackson's words suddenly trailed off, as the realization suddenly occurred to him. "Unless it does….and nobody had any way to figure that out until now…"

"It still does not," said Teal'C suddenly, having walked over to them in an interest in their impromptu summit, "and the Goa'uld System Lords have kept numerous records of their ancient enemies throughout the universe, in many galaxies. At no point has there ever been any mention of a Galactic Empire or Rebel Alliance…"

"Glad you could take the time out of your busy schedule to join us, big guy," said Jack. Turning back to Daniel, he continued, "Which leaves the question of how it came to be here. We just don't know, do we?"

"No, we don't," realized Daniel, "and we probably won't find out for some time, unless Harris decides to tell us. They might be from our Earth, and they're human, every one of them, but they do know how to operate this battle station and deploy its assets, so there's a fair chance that they do know how it came to be here so suddenly. Why don't we just ask them?"

"Will they answer?" countered O'Neill.

"They just saved our lives, Jack. Maybe they feel they owe us an answer."

"Yes, they certainly scratched our backs, Danny boy. Wanna finish the rest of that statement?"

"Indeed," supplied Teal'C, "it is equally likely that they may feel they have earned a favor from us for rescuing us from Apophis."

It suddenly occurred to Jack and Daniel both that the Jaffa might have inadvertently supplied a way out for everyone.

"Mutual benefit…" mused Daniel.

"They scratch our backs, we scratch theirs, they scratch our backs again…it's a whole big Scratch-a-Palooza…"

"We need Hammond up here…" Daniel stated. "Let's talk to Harris…"

"Or Dr. Giles…"

"Indeed…"

**Level Five, Detention Block AA-23**

Cell 2187 had held Leia Organa of Alderaan, and it had held Ethan Rayne of Earth. The cell was as famous as the rest of the station from the first Star Wars film, as many fanboys and devotees of the franchise would attest to. Until this night, it had not once held an alien being. That changed when Klorel, son of Apophis and warrior of the Goa'uld, stepped across the threshold and into its confines, to sit and contemplate his present circumstances.

Securely nestled within the body of Skaara of Abydos, Klorel ruminated.

How had it come to this? He was a warrior of the first order, destined to become a System Lord after Apophis himself; destined to conquer, to rule…

This damnable host had proven stronger than most. On his ship, when the Tau'ri leader had shot him with a stolen zat'ni'ktel, the host had proven strong enough to momentarily resurface, and the Tau'ri had witnessed the emergence. Only moments later he himself had been abducted, and a standoff forced. He had tapped into the mind of Skaara and used his words, when his Jaffa warriors were set to kill SG-1.

He could feel the host now, fighting, struggling to regain control of his consciousness. Until tonight, Klorel thought the idea an exercise in futility, as it was long known that nothing of the host could survive the blending. From now on he would fear the truth….

Warring with insecurity inside the body of Skaara of Abydos, Klorel ruminated.

**Vicinity of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, United States of America**

The latest communique from the Vigilant Watcherdetailed a location suitable for a _Lambda_-class shuttle to touch down without being observed, and it was here now that the delegation from the SGC had gathered together, including General Hammond, Janet Frasier, the base's Chief Medical Officer, the hastily-recalled SG-2, and Senator Kinsey, who was last to arrive after the pilot of his personal Gulfstream jet had to make a sudden course correction. The night sky was currently overcast, obscuring all starlight and threatening to get heavy with gathering rain clouds; it was precisely because of this that the clearing in this area of the local forest was selected for the shuttle landing site. Thunderstorms and heavy rain made people want to get indoors in a hurry, so they would be less likely to observe an unknown craft descending through the clouds.

The craft in question homed in on the clearing now, guided only by a precise set of coordinates and the Global Positioning System that was somehow being accessed by the shuttle's navigation system. Flashes of lightning reflected off the stark white hull, rivaling the glow from the exhaust nozzles and heralding the imminent downpour, and great peals of thunder drowned out the low-pitched drone of the shuttle's propulsion system. On the ground, someone had thrown a signal grenade that was now belching green-colored smoke, blowing almost sideways in the increasing wind. Were it not for the fact that the Kuat Drive Yards _Lambda_-class Imperial shuttle was not a true atmospheric craft, relying instead on the repulsorlifts that held it aloft rather than aerodynamic principle, the wind would have made it nearly impossible for the craft to fly, let alone achieve escape velocity.

Hammond watched the wings fold upwards as the craft descended into the clearing. He didn't know why he was suddenly reminded of the wings of a bird of prey as it prepared to powerdive towards a potential meal, and he forcefully cleared his head of that image as the shuttle glided down to a feather landing. Floodlights along the underside backlit the steam that belched forth from the reaction control nozzles, and the boarding ramp lowered as like a dragon opening its great maw to swallow whole its prey. He half expected to see a gnarled old man in a black cloak walk down the ramp with the aid of an equally gnarled cane, and he mentally suppressed a shiver. Thankfully no such personification of ultimate evil manifested from the shuttle's belly.

Instead, a young woman wearing a grey officer's uniform emerged and descended from the ramp to touch the ground as though science fantasy had suddenly passed through an invisible barrier into grim reality.

Robert Kinsey, for his part, found he could not describe the scene unfolding before him. The young woman with the shoulder-length blonde hair could not be more than sixteen years of age. He was no Star Wars fan, but he suspected that she was a lower-ranking officer, and thus could be generally easy to sway. He still had to tread carefully, however, as looks were generally deceiving; young though the junior officer was, it was clear she held a position of some authority, judging by the way she carried herself as she strode toward General Hammond with purpose. There was something about the eyes as well, he realized, something that bespoke of grim experience with darker, more nightmarish things than the Galactic Empire that the uniform she wore represented. It did not mesh with reality, the Senator's mind kept denying to him.

Once she was face to face with the General, the young officer spoke. "Are you Major General George Hammond, senior officer in charge of the SGC?"

"Yes, I am in charge of the Joint Special Operations unit called Stargate Command," Hammond introduced himself. "With me are my Chief Medical Officer, Captain Janet Frasier, MD, my second expeditionary team designated SG-2, Major Donald Feretti commanding, and Senator Robert Kinsey of Indiana, who also chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. We are honored to receive you and equally honored to be permitted to board your space station."

The young officer inclined her head very slightly, her eyes opening as she heard the words 'Stargate Command'. After only a second, though, she nodded her head in acceptance. "I am Commander Buffy Summers of the Vigilant Watcher, assigned by its commander, Grand Moff Xander Harris, to convey you all to the station. He will be pleased to meet you all, I'm sure, just as he will be pleased to hear about your Stargate Command. No doubt we have much to learn from each other." She turned to Kinsey then, intrigue reflecting in her old eyes and contrasting with her almost childlike cheeks. "A political leader? Grand Moff Harris will be especially interested in meeting with you, Senator Kinsey of Indiana."

"As I would be delighted to meet with the Grand Moff, on behalf of the US Congress," Kinsey returned. He felt slightly envious of the young Imperial Captain, who seemed to have no trouble speaking over the wind whereas he and Hammond almost had to shout. He then added, "Perhaps we could board the shuttle and lift off before the rain gets here?"

"Agreed," said the young Commander, nodding her assent; "time is short, and there is much to discuss. Please take your seats once we board, and I will do my best to make the trip as short and smooth as possible given the local weather."

The first drops of rain began to fall, faint at first, then harder and heavier by degrees, as the joint SGC/Senate delegation began to climb up the smooth surface of the boarding ramp and into the belly of the shuttle. While the ramp closed, thunder and lightning equally struck in greater frequency as the storm front drew near, and at some point after lifting off the craft had to fly through sheets of rain before it could break through the cloud layer and pass through the stratosphere. Within the shuttle, nothing was felt, not even a jolt. The seating for the passengers, while not the most comfortable, was decent enough, and with the inertial compensators dialed up it was actually a little more than tolerable for all but one. Kinsey was used to the finer comforts and the frantic scurrying of his personal staff to and fro as they hastened to carry out his commands, so he was more than just a little disappointed.

Still, he wouldn't mind flying around the country or the planet in one of these; they beat out his personal Gulfstream jet any day of the week. A Kuat Drive Yards _Lambda_ would be able to get from point A to point B in far less time than it took to achieve flight ceiling in a Gulfstream, and all without feeling a thing either on takeoff or landing. Add the fact of VTOL capability to the mix and Kinsey decided that once the Death Star station, which this young pilot called the Vigilant Watcher for some reason, was entirely under US control, then flying on one of these would become a fact of life. He'd just have to have something done to get better seats installed on his personal shuttle; let the rest of the government fly coach if that satisfied them. A Senator of the United States was entitled to better by far.

His musings were interrupted by the pilot's voice over the loudspeaker. "Gentlemen and madame, we've just broken through the ionosphere and are now on course to the Vigilant Watcher; our estimated time in flight should be about thirty minutes, as the station is currently holding position on the dark side of your moon. You may feel free to move about the cabin if you so desire, but I would ask you to return to your seats once we make our final approach."

It was only after Commander Summers made her announcement that everyone realized something. There had been no sensation of weightlessness. The flight out of the atmosphere of Earth had been so smooth that no-one had noticed the sensation of gravity. It had to have been generated artificially, but how? This technology was centuries ahead of its time; Kinsey was right to mention that to President Johnson over the phone just prior to traveling to the SGC, and he was now more convinced than ever that the Death Star and all its technology had to become the property of the US government. They sure as hell couldn't allow it to fall into the hands of the Chinese or the Russians, as they were likely to blow up the planet in a misguided attempt to wipe the US off the face of the Earth.

And thirty minutes from Earth orbit to the other side of the Moon? What sort of fuel was it using to produce that much thrust? Even the Space Shuttle system used gigantic solid rocket boosters filled with solid oxygen just to escape Earth's gravity, and an even larger external fuel tank besides. This small shuttlecraft looked like it couldn't make altitude, let alone the vast distance from here to the Moon and beyond. With that kind of range, the opportunities to colonize the solar system, let alone the galaxy, were manifold. The untold riches…

Kinsey was not stupid. Reality itself was staring him right in the face, and it wore the visage of an orbiting weapon of mass destruction. The Senator was no scientist, but it didn't take a scientist to figure out that whatever fuel the _Lambda_ was using, the Death Star was using an unimaginably more vast quantity of the same, not only for propulsion, but also, he strongly suspected, to power its huge primary weapon. Whenever the next shuttle that touched down on Earth's surface, he had to make sure it was on US soil, so the science team that he would contract out for the assignment could obtain a sample of the fuel for analysis. Plus he might have to ensure that anything that passed through the hands of Hammond or O'Neill was reported to him by his contacts in the NID, on the off-chance that they acquired a key technology or learned a vital secret that could prove damaging to national security.

There was still the matter of the SGC operating without Congressional funding, which was still his primary purpose of making the trip to Cheyenne Mountain; he leaned over to General Hammond and, with a quick tilt of his chin, beckoned him over to sit beside him. No sooner did the General do so than Kinsey gave him a glare that would have shriveled another man with its intensity. Kinsey's calm whisper barely concealed the venom in his words.

"Let's keep this civil here, General Hammond, while we sit through this space cruise. I am concerned about the SGC's continued operation in light of the fact that the Appropriations Committee pulled all further funding for the Stargate Program from the national budget. There had better be a very good reason for this, otherwise I will be forced to take this to the Department of Justice with my recommendation that everyone employed by the SGC be placed under immediate arrest, pending charges of treason."

Kinsey's glare was easily matched by one of Hammond's; the General knew that Kinsey was looking for any advantage in the upcoming election, and it was common knowledge that Kinsey was vying for the position of running mate on the Republican Presidential ticket. For everyone's sake, Hammond knew, that could not be allowed to happen, but that decision was not his to make. He was a general in the US Air Force, not a member of Congress. Still, his voice carried great weight with the current President, and he could go back to the Mountain after this was done and make a phone call. With what he knew of the Senator, it might be enough to see Kinsey's Vice Presidential bid come crashing down around his ears. And then, of course, the President would get mad at him for using the red phone to influence an election, which was something generals simply did not do if they valued their careers.

A noncommittal grunt was all, then, that came out of Hammond in response to Kinsey's statement.

"Mm-hmm."

Kinsey's eyebrows went up. "General Hammond, I am well aware that the US Armed Forces do not mint stupid generals, so I would appreciate more of a response from you than a simple grunt of acknowledgment."

Hammond then turned to face the Senator. "I'm sorry, Senator, did you want an explanation?" In moments such as this one, where Hammond became agitated or irritable, his thick Texas twang became more pronounced. "I'm sure you're aware that there's no such thing as a stupid general officer, so I'm also sure you're aware that no Senator or Congressman currently serving in office gets to that lofty position simply on luck. If it's an explanation you want, then I suggest you look out that cockpit canopy, Senator. In about twenty minutes you'll have all the explanation you will ever need and then some. You will, of course, have every opportunity to speak with the crew and command staff of that space station when we finally board, if that isn't proof enough for you. Go ahead and have a look, Senator Kinsey; even so far out here, you can see it, can't you?"

_Y'all take a nice, long look down the barrel of that superlaser, too, while you're at it,_ was Hammond's unspoken addition to his response. _And I hope you remember what it looks like for a long time to come…._

The Senator, for his part, took Hammond's advice to heart, and he stood up onto the deckplates, noticing for the first time the artificial gravity. Pushing that to the back of his mind, however, he strode up to the cockpit hatch, coming as close as he dared without actually stepping inside.

He was totally unprepared for the sheer vastness of the thing. The roughly spherical battle station was nearly one-fourth the size of the Moon itself, reminding him of the recent film Independence Day. An artificial construct like that would have taken _decades_ to build, and that wasn't counting all the testing of each of the uncountably numerous systems in the station, ranging from security to navigation, from the greatest weapon in its arsenal to the smallest flow valves and gate valves in the even more vast and complex pipework. Even from the vast distance that the shuttle could cover between their present point in space to the Death Star in the twenty minutes they had left, merely the size of the construct was terror-inspiring. Robert Kinsey found himself speechless with both terror….and possibility.

Neither the scale nor the grandeur of it did not truly reveal themselves to him until the shuttle closed to within five thousand kilometers, thereabouts, and for everyone who happened to see the Vigilant Watcher as they came around to the dark side of the Moon, those two aspects had the power to render them mute by turns with shock, disbelief, and awe. There was of course the horror inherent in the superweapon's original purpose, for who could not look upon that construct and see the horrible giant dish that was the visible portion of the station's primary weapon? Anyone who had seen the first and third _Star Wars_ films, in order of their production, would remember the terrible genocidal power of the superlaser as it struck the planet Alderaan and the Mon Calamari battleship designated Home One. They stood there in the shuttle's passenger bay, looking on at the very same battle station that had smashed Alderaan into rubble in naught but an instant, snuffing out billions of lives in the process. The horror only increased as they neared the Overbridge Hangar Bay, nestled firmly above the north edge of the superlaser dish, which more and more resembled a vast caldera as they approached the atmosphere containment field. Even the myriad features of the city sprawls as they revealed themselves were little noticed, the horror of the planet buster pervading the senses of every last soul in the SGC/Senate delegation.

One thing broke the Senator's reverie; rather, two things did. Identical spaceships, each resembling a pyramid firmly ensconced within a dull metallic ovoid disc; they drifted aimlessly through the void like things that had once lived but now were lifeless hulks, and suddenly Kinsey realized the truth of O'Neill's words as well as those of the alien Teal'C. The barbarians had truly been upon the gates, and inside Cheyenne Mountain was the billion-dollar machine that would hold them back. Yet, with all its inherent grandeur and majesty, the Stargate seemed inconsequential in the face of the machine before them all that was greater and potentially more expensive than the Stargate by an incomprehensible order of magnitude. At last, Kinsey knew there was an enemy out there in the larger galaxy, one that directly threatened not only the people of the United States, but humanity as a whole.

But first Robert Kinsey had a task before him, for now not only did Earth have need to be made safe for democracy, but the entire Milky Way galaxy, in its turn. First al-Qaeda had to be made to fall, then the Russians, the Chinese and then the rogue states such as Iran and North Korea would be brought to heel, and then the whole of humanity would be unified in peace and freedom under the Stars and Stripes.

It was a righteous goal, and God did support the righteous. After all, was it not the duty of the righteous to spread righteousness in an unrighteous world? And as God did support the righteous, the righteous could not but prevail.

Robert Kinsey would first have an American Earth, then an American Galaxy. He would use the Death Star to make it happen. These thoughts inspired him and fed his desire as the station swallowed up the shuttle that carried them, him, and his goals and ambitions, into the hangar bay.

_A/N: I don't know how I managed this chapter; I was half asleep for Kinsey's shuttle ride over up until the last, but we're close to midnight here in this story, and Cordelia will have some greater part to play here before I'm done with the first part, and we'll see some Sunnydale action sometime in the next chapter, which should mainly concern itself with the summit onboard the station, but let's just enjoy the ride for now, k?_


	15. The Diplomacy of Generosity

The Diplomacy of Generosity

_Disclaimer - As before, I own neither Star Wars, Stargate, or Buffy. Bollocks..._

**Vigilant Watcher, 01 November 1997**

Hammond could not believe what he was seeing all around him. It felt surreal to him, like being on the set of a film, if he could ignore the fact that looking behind the shuttle showed him the empty vastness of space, with the Earth glowing brightly in the distance, behind the Moon, which looked so much larger for being so much closer to the Death Star.

It was only the virtue of several decades of Air Force discipline that allowed him to conceal his utter disbelief at the six words that went through his head.

_I am aboard the Death Star._

The landing had gone so smoothly, he had never felt a thing. The entire procedure was done automatically from the control booth above the bay, where one of the bridge crew had actually played a part in operating the tractor beam system that locked onto the shuttle and guided it into the hangar bay, then landed the craft, if it could be believed, even more gently than the Lambdahad done in the forest clearing near Cheyenne Mountain. Then they had to wait a moment while air held in hidden reservoirs was pumped into the vast chamber, but then the landing officer had confirmed that they could exit the shuttle and step onto the floor.

The ramp had then lowered, giving all aboard the shuttle the same feeling of a vast predatory animal opening its jaws to disgorge its prey, but the feeling subsided when they were met by another young woman, a brunette this time of slightly greater stature but in general the same age virtually as their pilot. She wore the same uniform, but she carried herself with a different sort of grace. There were some slight differences between the two young Imperial officers aside from what could be seen at first glance; a trained eye could notice the differences in their posture, the confidence of the brunette that said she was used to being seen and admired, and the quiet menace exuding from the shorter blonde, the predator's grace that said she was more accustomed to some unnamed battlefield than to the runways of Paris, New York and Milan's fashion shows. The brunette had killer looks; the blonde was a killing machine, period. Hammond had taken this all in with naught but a sideways glance between the one-woman welcoming committee and the pilot, and none were the wiser for it.

When the brunette officer spoke, it was the voice of self-assuredness laced with honey. "Welcome on board the Vigilant Watcher. I am Commander Cordelia Chase, the station's Chief of Security, and I'll be your liaison officer while you're onboard. And while I'd love to show you around the place, the station itself is quite large, and also the station commander has expressed his desire to see you all as soon as your craft touched down, so if you'll follow me, please, we can get to where we're going with less of a fuss."

"Thank you, Commander Chase," replied Hammond, "It's a unique pleasure to be aboard your space station." To himself, he mused, _Now where have I heard that name before? Might be nothing, but still, better to find out than not_ "Much as I would enjoy the grand tour, though, I do have a job to do, debriefing SG-1 and your own people who took part in the operation to retrieve them. Naturally that means the debriefing must be conducted here on the station."

Doctor Frasier, after a brief introduction, added, "I will also be evaluating the post-operational fitness of each team member—"

"No problem, Doctor Frasier, I'm sure the Moff would gratefully allow the use of the station's medical facilities," interjected Chase. This provoked a widening of the eyes in the diminutive Air Force Captain; surprise and gratitude were not her more frequently-experienced emotions.

"That's…that's very generous, Commander. Thank you," was all Frasier could manage.

"It's our pleasure. Now if you'll all follow me to the security station, I can get you all processed in, and then we'll proceed to the Overbridge where Moff Harris will be waiting for us as we speak. Please..." Commander Chase indicated a set of double doors with a suggestive wave of her hand. As they began to walk in the proffered direction, Senator Kinsey audibly cleared his throat.

"How long will the security check take, precisely, Commander? The Moff and I particularly have much to discuss concerning the initial appearance of the station over American airspace…"

"Then you should direct those questions to Moff Harris and not to me, Senator…Kinsey, is that right?"

"It is, Commander." Chase nodded her head at his affirmation and said no more to him.

Right off the bat, she did not like the man. Greasy, slimy politicians…her daddy had, as a perk of being a distant relative of the famous Chases that ran the banking system in America's glory days along with J. P. Morgan and the Rockefellers, he had been deeply involved in financing defense contractors for the last five Presidential administrations, and had made rather a large number of political acquaintances through that time, not the least of which were certain Senators and Congressmen that sat on the House and Senate Appropriations and Select Armed Services Committees, among others. It was her father who had taught her to view those around her as tools to be used, to evaluate them for their potential to aid her advancement in society, especially the more affluent and powerful ones. Yet for all her brusqueness, she was nowhere near the cold, calculating, Machiavellian bastard her father was; she might not tolerate foolishness or tact, but she was as honest in thought and deed as she was with her words. She had caught the look in Kinsey's eye, and it sent a faint shiver up her spine, as though she had been placed under a microscope for close scrutiny. She would, Cordelia swore to herself, follow up on that sense later, but at the present, she had a job to do for the self-proclaimed King of Cretins.

Like Hammond, Robert Kinsey was vaguely familiar with the name of Gregory Chase, but unlike Hammond, he was also vaguely aware that Gregory had a little daughter, though he had since forgotten the little darling's first name. The Chief of Station Security had the same long brown hair, though, and the same face as that tiny little bundle carried around by Gregory's wife Virginia. Why she resembled nothing of the man, he never could quite figure out, but it wasn't the rarest thing in the world for a child to look next to nothing like one parent or the other, so the notion took up a little space in a back corner of his mind, where he could deal with it at his leisure. The priority was the station itself, and what he could come up with to facilitate its confiscation by US authorities.

With the Death Star, the enemies of democracy, and indeed all that stood in its path, could be annihilated on a whim. There still had to be due and just cause to do so, though, as a pre-emptive strike with the Death Star's powerful superlaser, even powered down, would cause a greater outrage across the globe than Hitler's "Final Solution" ever did. The political and tactical situation had to be such that nothing else could be justified as an appropriate response, and it was Kinsey's job to create just such a situation. By one of his colleagues in the Senate Intelligence Committee, he had access to the Senate Daily Intelligence Brief, and from several of those reports, he had made a conclusion that a little-known terrorist organization, which called itself "Al-Qaeda" meaning "the base" in Arabic, was gearing up for a major operation. The identity of their targets carried little weight with him, because the important moment to gather the appropriate intelligence on this group would come afterwards, when search and recovery teams would sift through the detritus and uncover clues as to the attackers' origin and subsequent destination.

It would all be tracked to a country or group of countries that was sponsoring terrorism, and then suddenly an unexplained firestorm would scour the land clean of that country and its terrible misdeeds. He could pass that off as a modern-day miracle, but more credibly it would be called God's holy retribution, galvanizing the evangelical communities across America, the majority of which supported Kinsey and those like him. The more radical amongst those wished to do away with the US Constitution entirely and replace it with the King James Bible as the new theocracy's charter. To them, rule by law required first rule by God, and there could be no deviation from that standpoint.

Kinsey would ride the wave of Christian radicalism to the Oval Office, where he would institute his own reforms and cement his position, using the laws of the country to make it more difficult to dislodge him.

He had little time left for ruminations, however, as the group neared the Security booth for in-processing. Instead, as he submitted to various scans done by the very sophisticated robots there, he limited his focus to two facts that he had thus far realized. The first was that by the sound of their voices, mainly Commander Cordelia Chase's, whose first name Kinsey had realized was somehow familiar, they were Americans. Second, it took no great intellect to surmise that a vessel or outpost of this titanic size and dimension would need a proportionally vast crew complement, somewhere in the figure of close to one hundred thousand, give or take, yet this Death Star was strangely vacant, save for the few crew he had seen so far. What stood out about them, though, was not merely their accents, but also their appearance. Someone so youthful should not be permitted to set foot on a military installation such as this, yet these children seemed to be in charge of the station's day-to-day operation. He had even heard a rumor upon arriving at Cheyenne Mountain that they were involved in the rescue of SG-1, as unlikely as that seemed, and he would soon either put paid to that rumor, or Hammond's debriefing would verify it.

The whole process took only a few short minutes, during which he had to say his name and his position within the US government, the n submit to voiceprint, retinal and palmprint scans, after which a DNA sample was taken and entered into the registry with everything else. When the last to go through was fully processed in, then Commander Chase looked everything over and, satisfied that things were in order, led everyone to the Overbridge.

**Overbridge**

While Cordelia was busy with her new security chief duties, which she had learned rather quickly and taken to like a duck to the water, Xander was busy discussing a thing with Giles and with the SG-1 CO that had occurred to him during the delegation's shuttle ride up from Earth. This Senator Kinsey, from what Colonel O'Neill had told them, was as slimy as any politician with ambitions and designs on the Presidency could get, and Xander surmised that he would try to get them to turn over the Vigilant Watcher to US central authority by any and all means within his power.

"So…what you're saying is, he's another Tarkin, isn't he?" Xander had replied after hearing O'Neill's lengthy and detailed description of the man. At Giles' nod, he nodded his head thoughtfully and decided, "We have to declare this station sovereign territory."

"Xander, I don't know how that will go over with the other nations of the Earth; this station was designed by its creators to be a weapon of mass destruction. One does not normally turn that into a sovereign nation-state, especially without some sort of sufficient crew."

"Yeah," the teenage Moff agreed, "I've been thinking about that also. Why don't we see how many people in Sunnydale want to move up here? If we can manage it, then we might possibly starve the Hellmouth of victims inside of a year. And with the pull and the resources of the Watchers' Council, we might just manage to do it in even less time." Xander thought further, then added, "So here's an idea I want to throw at you, Rupert: while it's still the weekend, let's take a shuttle down to London and see what the tweed club can do for us. First thing is we find whatever's on the station that we can use to trade for goods and services. A nation's nothing without an economy, right? We negotiate some sort of agreement with the nations of Earth for military, economic and humanitarian aid. This station's no longer a weapon of mass destruction as long as I'm around, but it still serves another purpose. While those Goa'uld are out there, the Vigilant Watcher can act as a force projection platform. We have thousands of fighters and landing craft; as long as we can get the pilots and troops to use them we can field a small army onto any planetary surface and defeat the enemy with overwhelming force and numbers. Earth already knows about the Watcher's existence, so we break the news to them that we stand ready to receive those troops that volunteer for service across the galaxy, and they can help out with any sort of mission, including humanitarian and disaster relief. Those worlds faced with natural disasters can get a ferry ride up to the station to wait out the crisis with food and shelter aplenty. We can actively trade with those people at the same time, so we eventually develop a working galactic-scale economy. More trade partners means more allies against the Goa'uld and other enemies out there, so we can win this thing much sooner than the SGC probably imagined they could with just a few people."

Just then a chime sounded at the door, followed by Cordelia's voice. "Stargate Command and US Senate delegation to meet with the Grand Moff."

"Well, at least we now know what SGC stands for," Giles smiled, with an aside to the SGC Colonel.

"Let them in," replied Xander. The door opened, and Cordelia stepped in and sideways to permit the guests to enter the Overbridge. The first to enter was obviously the SGC Commander, General Hammond. He was a slightly portly, balding older gentleman with two stars on each of his shoulder boards, signifying the rank of an Air Force Major General. The stern, paternal countenance and the crispness of his uniform belied the physical condition of the man, and as he strode over to SG-1, which members formed into a small line and mirrored his greeting, that countenance evinced a merry, relieved twinkle at seeing his flagship team members alive and unharmed. Their full physical assessment Hammond left to the pixie-sized redheaded doctor who had walked onto the Overbridge with him. The others entered as a single group, four other soldiers and a white-haired man in what appeared to be an expensive suit and tie with a pin in the shape of the US flag positioned on the right lapel of his jacket; this, presumably, was the aforementioned Senator Kinsey.

Addressing all, Xander greeted them, "I thank you for accepting my invitation aboard this space station, and I expect and hope that we can pass the time here amicably," looking pointedly at the 'good' Senator. Kinsey returned the Grand Moff's gaze with one of his own, which said in no uncertain terms that he was not fooled by the expression one bit. Nonplussed, Xander gestured for the party to follow him. "If you'll come with me, next door there's a conference room usually used for the station's command staff, but it'll do for our purposes. The double doors parted with a hydraulic hiss at his approach, and he turned to the right at another set of double doors, which opened to reveal a circular table with a glossy black hemisphere in the center. At each seat there was a panel and a screen that was normally used by department heads to compartmentalize and arrange their information in a more presentable fashion, as well as being used for communications with their various departments. The SGC delegation regarded these panels with some degree of confusion, but Xander allayed their suspicions with a wave of his hand at their skeptical glances.

"Let's not bother ourselves with the panels at each seat, since we won't need them. If you will all please sit down, we can begin," he stated. As each member of the delegation lowered themselves into their seats, which they found, to a man or woman, surprisingly comfortable despite their Spartan appearance, they turned their gazes then to the young man who had veritably given them back SG-1 on a silver platter. For his part, Xander was glad he had Dawn take the civilians, including Joyce Summers, on a brief tour of the station, whatever brief meant in this case; it would give them all time to hash out whatever needed to be hashed out in what was turning out to be the first summit meeting between his crew and the US government. Nobody in the Sunnydale group had anything useful to contribute to the discussion as it stood, aside from the Changed (as Xander privately put it) that now served as the station's crew.

"Once again, thank you for having us aboard, Moff Harris," said Hammond as everyone began to take their seats.

"Please, I never liked that particular title; I prefer Xander or, if you must insist, Grand Admiral Harris. I hear "Mr. Harris" and I look around for my old man…" the newly self-appointed Grand Admiral with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Grand Admiral?" asked Kinsey with undisguised skepticism. There had never been such a title of rank in the entire history of the United States Navy or Coast Guard, the closest to such a title being Admiral of the Navy. "Of what fleet?"

"I'm glad you asked, Senator," responded Xander with the faintest of smiles; "That was one of the things I wanted to discuss. First things first, though. I trust our cooperation in this rescue operation was to everyone's satisfaction?" He looked at the assembled faces sitting across from him; none that dared to glance back showed the slightest inclination towards resentment or ill favor of any sort.

As if reading the young Moff's mind, Colonel O'Neill spoke out, his eyebrows slightly raised. "I believe I speak for all of us when I say that as one of the rescuees I am maybe ninety-nine point nine nine nine…ah, what the hell; it's close enough to one hundred nobody's gonna care much. Ok? My XO's the one who's big on significant figures, anyway. I just tend to say where to shoot and where to move."

"Don't downplay your own talents, Colonel," said Hammond, "you've done a hell of a job so far." Turning to Harris, he added, "The Colonel's sarcasm aside, I am one hundred percent in agreement with his assessment of our feelings towards your efforts on our behalf. Plus now we have two inert Goa'uld ships plus a Goa'uld prisoner to go over and analyze for further intelligence collection and general study. I'm convinced this will give us more knowledge about their military mindset than anything else we've come across in the past twelve months.". Turning to O'Neill he added, "We're still going to try and do everything we can to get Klorel safely out of Skaara..." The glare that O'Neill gave him was immediately softened by those words.

Harris nodded at the General's appreciation. Until today he had been convinced that most high-ranking officers in the military service were swaggering warmongers who gladly took Uncle Sam's dime and were thoroughly convinced that the US would be better served by living under a military dictatorship. He hadn't given it much thought as to how much of his own sentiment was due to Tarkin's influence in his own mind or whether he was simply disillusioned with the current state of the government and the economy, but he hadn't entirely disagreed with the stereotype. Hammond cut a different figure than the rest, though. Though he was a highly competent officer, his personality suggested that he viewed the people under his command as something close to family, like children, perhaps. That degree of professionalism combined with the sheer determination to defend the Earth convinced Xander that perhaps it was time to up the ante, as it were.

"I also have on board several hundred captured Jaffa and their…'Death Gliders', I believe the term is?" Xander added.

"Teal'C and I should speak to the captured Jaffa and let them know they can count themselves among friends, if they choose to throw off the shackles of the false gods," an elderly man with an odd, gleaming skullcap decided to interject. "We can show them the way to freedom, if they will follow."

"Excuse me, sir," said Giles suddenly, unaware like the others until this point of this new wrinkle in the developing situation, "but are you implying that these people are _slaves_?"

The old man with the skullcap nodded. "As were the Tau'ri thousands of years ago, in the service of Ra and the other System Lords. Thankfully your people learned long ago how to fan the spark of resentment into the flames of rebellion. Freedom is a right to be enjoyed by all, regardless of the circumstances of one's birth, though it comes at a cost. The slave must ever strive to free himself, Admiral Harris, and the cost is usually blood."

"I'm sorry, but…who were the Tau'ri?" Xander asked, curious of the unknown appellation.

"We are, Admiral," said Jack O'Neill. "Teal'c would enjoy telling you where the word comes from. Wouldn't you, buddy?"

The big black man with the gold tattoo on his forehead nodded slightly at the recognition. "The Tau'ri are the people of what we call the First World, what the humans call Earth. If not for the uniforms of the Galactic Empire that you wear, I would have recognized you also as Tau'ri, as humans of this world."

Jack suddenly looked askance at the former First Prime of Apophis. Normally stoic and inscrutable, his visage had registered an uncommon glee upon recognizing his surroundings as the infamous Death Star of Star Wars legend. O'Neill noticed that Teal'c's perceptions had been altered by the once-in-a-lifetime experience of walking the corridors of the battle station. In truth, all had found themselves slightly awed by the unique and totally surreal twist that reality had taken, yet most had tempered their feelings of insignificance with the determination to accomplish their mission. However much, though, that the Jaffa possessed the same determination, he was tonight unusually expressive of his jovial mood.

In contrast, however, the crew of the Vigilant Watcherfound themselves feeling unnaturally exposed. They were unusually young aside from the middle-aged gentleman with them, and surrounded by a dozen military service-members plus one incumbent US Senator, they were doubtless feeling very self-conscious of it. In the specific case of the older gentleman, that self-consciousness was manifesting itself in his mind as a mental struggle between telling a rather difficult lie and going with total disclosure. Whichever way he finally chose, though, he recognized that the military people needed to know something soon, here at this table. Unfortunately, Kinsey's next words reduced that window for action by a significant margin.

"Excuse me, people. 'Humans of this world'? Are you suggesting that these aliens we're speaking to are in fact not aliens at all, but our own people? If this proves to be true, or if these people claim to be from Earth, as you suggest, then I believe the Senate of the United States has some jurisdictional claim to this space station. Since it did appear in space over the continental United States, gentlemen and ladies, it would give the Senate some claim over the Death Star Vigilant Watcher and everything aboard it, and as a member of the United States Senate, I hereby order you people to surrender this station and your claim to it to us, as the prevailing governmental authority on site."

"I beg your pardon, _Senator_," challenged Giles, suddenly standing and looking for all the world like a father who had just been told to offer up his children as a sacrifice to a pagan deity, "but these Earthlings took over this station almost as soon as it appeared and waged a battle in space, with, I might add, no prior training nor preparation for their individual roles in the conflict, against a foe that your premier exploration team had encountered numerous times and can vouch for the reputation of the foe we now face. During the struggle, one of their objectives, which they accomplished rather splendidly, in my view, was the location and rescue of your SG-1 team, who would not at this moment be standing here otherwise, as well as capturing and incarcerating a key individual among the enemy leadership for future intelligence assessment and collection, and disabling both capital ships that arrived in this solar system to invade and conquer Earth en masse, and well over two hundred of their smaller attack craft, with their pilots. Do not presume to imply that you can force your authority upon this station or its crew, who I will stand with even at the cost of my life. They may be Americans, and I might not be, but that does not give you _carte blanche_ to bully us into handing over the Watcher."

"We never said we were aliens, Senator," Xander, after listening to Kinsey's blustering and Giles's subsequent retort, decided to add his own statement to the mix. "This station will stand in defense of humanity as a whole species, and we will not pledge ourselves to the allegiance of any one particular nation. To that end, we are prepared to discuss terms with your delegation, which I hope we can accept on a mutual basis. This will involve an exchange of information and technology in good faith on both our parts, yours as well as ours. We can help you bolster your military capability against the Goa'uld and other races that may pose a potential threat to the safety of Earth and humanity in general, and in return, you can help us bolster our crew complement with multinational candidates who would of course, volunteer for service aboard this station – I will not accept conscripts or draftees, nor any other sort that is less than fully inclined to be here and to serve faithfully in their assigned duties. There will be, of course, a screening program to select the most qualified personnel, military and civilian, to serve aboard my battle station. I expect any governments who volunteer to send people to serve and live here to do their own screening of potential candidates, and I also expect them to bear in mind," looking pointedly at the Senator as he said this, "that those screening programs must comply with my standards. This is not an American battle station, nor British, nor Japanese or Chinese; this is an Earth battle station and will be identified and respected as such. If necessary, I will petition before the United Nations that the Vigilant Watcher be recognized as a separate, sovereign entity, equal to and independent of any one nation's or organization's control."

As Xander spoke, everyone closely regarded Senator Kinsey's countenance, concluding that Kinsey clearly did not wish to countenance what he considered to be a great betrayal of his and his country's confidence in these wayward citizens. To him, this battle station was more than a threat to his country; it was an abomination. Although it could not be destroyed by conventional means, and Kinsey imagined that not even a nuclear strike would be sufficient to sufficiently damage the battle station and cripple it, Kinsey swore that no American would set foot on it nor subject themselves to the rule of a military administrator like Moff Harris.

General Hammond, however, saw the wisdom in Xander's suggestion. He had a few questions to ask about the subjects he commented more lightly upon. "Mr. Harris, you mentioned something about an exchange of technology and information. What sorts of information and technology are you offering?"

Xander nodded his head at this. "Medical technology and equipment, first and foremost, or at least the means to produce it, shall be given freely and openly to any nation that asks for it. I offer the design schematics for the production of surgical and rehabilitation equipment, as well as the means to synthesize a bacta derivative. Bacta, at least the genuine stuff, cannot itself be synthesized; it must be harvested and collected, but with the proper analysis, that vital chemical which makes bacta what it is can be synthesized and then produced in mass quantities for use in treating all those that suffer such injuries as burns and the like."

"That's great in theory," said Dr. Frasier, speaking at last, "but we will need to validate the means to synthesize and produce the vital components of the bacta formula that you plan to gift to us. When ordinary people first start getting wind of this, don't you think they're going to want to know how it was produced and whether or not it's safe to use?"

"I'm not about to give something to ordinary people that wouldn't be safe for them to use," Xander readily replied, "and I promise as much transparency as I can afford to permit given the circumstances at present. This doesn't mean, however, that those circumstances could never change; they always do, and I will of course keep myself and my crew abreast of current events whenever possible. The end goal here is free and open trade with the nations of Earth to the limits of our ability, and to that end I am willing to go before the United Nations and petition the representatives of the leading nations for volunteers to fill in vital crew positions aboard this station. This will of course, naturally include civilian as well as military roles. This station is vast and complex, and it requires a substantial crew to function, and I can't keep running the Watcher forever on nothing more than a skeleton crew. Since you're here, I suppose I could start by asking you to take my request for volunteers to come serve aboard the station to your President."

"Just a minute," Kinsey started, "I don't think the President can just unilaterally approve assignment orders for US military personnel to transfer to a foreign asset…."

"Senator, with all due _respect_," interrupted Xander Harris with an icy glare directed at the senior lawmaker, "you are not the commander in chief of US armed forces; that duty belongs exclusively to the President as per the Constitution of the United States, so the decision is his to make. General Hammond can convey my request to the President better than you can, sir, so that is what I shall expect, and I shall expect the President's decision to go through General Hammond as well. The Congress need not be involved unless to approve funds for such operations to commence, which brings me to another subject."

"That being, since I see no way to afford the required financial compensation for the troops stationed here?" retorted Kinsey with a pleased look about him. The trap had been sprung, and the game was caught; there was nothing left to do but to put the prey out of its misery and begin to flay it..

"Our molecular furnace can produce a wide variety of items by recombination at the subatomic level. Anything we want, we program into the system, and then just wait for it to finish what it does. It can synthesize most anything from replacement parts for components here on the station to durable currency, which will be tradeable for US dollars or whatever nation's currency can be brought up here; I intend to run this station's economy on a gold standard, people, so whatever dollars I receive from your people when they get here, upon the President's approval, will be backed by the gold and silver we shall produce in our molecular furnace."

Not bothering to pay attention to the looks of astonishment on everyone's faces at his sudden declaration, he went on. "Doubtless you understand the primary purpose for which this battle station was built; do not doubt for a second my understanding of your reasonable anxiety. There will be no belligerent use of this battle station beyond the protection of this solar system. And there are, of course, peaceful uses for this station's primary weapon. Our scanners can confirm the lifelessness of certain space bodies in this system. In fact I seem to recall a whole belt of those between Mars and Jupiter orbits, so I don't think a few smashed asteroids for their raw materials would be sorely missed."

It was then he paused to allow everyone to express their thoughts. For the space of about a minute there were no words, just astonished glances to Moff Harris now and again, then the hushed whispers began.

At length General Hammond concluded their little strategy session, and as a group all turned to Xander. "The sudden appearance of the Watcher over this planet has proven nothing but a great boon to the human race as a whole, Admiral Harris," the CG of Stargate Command began. "You've already helped us out greatly in our moment of need by winning the previous engagement with the Goa'uld. Now with this offer of your station as a protection asset as well as a trade outpost and exploration platform, you've enabled humanity to take a great leap forward. I'm pleased to call you a friend, and I hope we can look forward to more visits aboard your station."

The young Moff inclined his head in acknowledgment and gratitude. "I am honored, General. When we're finished here, I would invite your Chief Medical Officer to visit our medical facilities and peruse them at her leisure. If she wishes to use them, I will be glad to explain their function and assist her in using them to evaluate your team's fitness before your return trip to the SGC."

Hearing all this, Doctor Frasier blushed like a schoolgirl on prom night. "Why th-thank you, Admiral! I'm speechless…"

"Nonsense, my dear Doctor Frasier," replied Xander, "I wouldn't hear it. The best technology available to modern medicine should be a basic right of all medical practitioners, the ability to provide the best health care second to none…"

As good as his word, Admiral Harris had given them the grand tour of the station, so to speak anyway. The tour was really nothing more than a quick briefing and orientation to the various sections of the Vigilant Watcher and their equally varied facilities, as the entire station would have taken at least a year for one to familiarize oneself with the unimaginably vast structure.

One such facility was the medical wing in Medical Station 381-N3, Sector N-Three, which meant Medcenter number 381, in City Sprawl number three, zone Three-North. It was there that the young station commandant offered the use of the equipment for Doctor Frasier's evaluation of SG-1 and SG-2, as well as the Command staff and Senator Kinsey. It was difficult for Frasier to read at first, having had no experience with reading Aurebesh, but with the help of Teal'C, who amazingly understood it like a second language, the process of determining the function of each tool and instrument became intuitive, and before she had finished scanning and treating Captain Carter she had found herself asking if Harris could loan some of the medical equipment to the medical wing in the Cheyenne Mountain complex, as well as to the hospital wing at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

That he had so easily and readily agreed to both was a shock to the Air Force Captain, and she began to wonder if in fact she was not beginning to fall for him. She was somewhat distracted by this data, unable to process it as yet, as she began to evaluate the civilians aboard. One of them, a Joyce Summers, brought her back to reality, fully focused on what had appeared to be a small shadow on her cerebral cortex. It was surprising, really; more commonplace medical equipment would not have detected it until well into an advanced stage, almost until it would have fully metastasized and become malignant. But Janet Frasier knew a tumor when she saw one.

She swore that as soon as the SGC acquired the new Imperial medical equipment and tech, that she would see Joyce Summers transferred to the Colorado Springs facility and treated there without delay.

The most essential component of any user interface is the means to comprehend the language used in the same. Knowing this, Xander Harris, commander of the _Death Star_-class battle station Vigilant Watcherunderstood there were some vital changes to be made to the processing software. The primary interface language was Galactic Basic, which was still English, and the processing fonts included a wide range of galactic languages such as Huttese, Ubese, Toydarian, Naboo, and the like, but unless one understood and read the Aurebesh alphabet, one would not know if they were heading to the superlaser maintenance sections or the local toilet, any debate on which was the more immediately important task notwithstanding.

Xander knew he had to take inventory of his battle station's resources. He had to find that molecular furnace and learn how to operate it. An idea had already formed in his mind as to how to regulate trade with others who would do commerce on his station, and that was to coin money, about which Xander was feeling rather anxious. He didn't want to get into trouble with his own country's government for counterfeiting, though really it wasn't counterfeiting per se; only a minute's thought reassured him as to the validity of his enterprise, and the potential political clout it would generate with the nations of the world. He was reluctant to do so, but he knew this was a case in which Tarkin's advice would help him tremendously. As a politician and an aristocrat, Wilhuff Tarkin was an accomplished economist. With his help, Xander Harris would go much farther than the mere boy that he had been with only five dollars to his name and a decent ability to make a bargain. Five Gold Imperials…

That was it. Xander had at last the currency he needed to trade independently with the other countries. He would have to assume the title of Governor and then declare the sovereignty of the Vigilant Watcher to the rest of the world. All he needed then was to begin production of the currency with which he would trade, and the wheels would begin to spin.

While he regarded all these thoughts, he allowed the main party to advance forward somewhat, until he was nearly shoulder to shoulder with Willow, and then with a nudge to that same shoulder and a slight toss of his head, he indicated that they should hang back a bit for some privacy.

"I have an issue I need your help with, Willow, and it's an important one," he began as soon as the rest were satisfyingly out of earshot.

"What's that?" she asked sotto voce. By his expression, it was something he couldn't handle without her assistance, her expertise or both. She nodded her head slightly, smiling at her childhood friend as her eyes widened, suggesting that he should come out with it.

"I need to teach you how to read Aurebesh," he concluded. "The operating system for the station's computer core uses Aurebesh as the default font for reading and understanding Galactic Basic. That's English, by the way, so learning another language won't be necessary, but it doesn't have any of the fonts required for reading the English language as we know it. Think you can spare some time after class when we finally get back to Earth?"

Willow noticed mentally that he didn't say "Sunnydale". It worried her, that did, but she chose at that time not to express that particular concern. "Yeah, Xander, I think I can swing that. Can I get Dawn to help out too?"

"Anyone you need, Wills. I'll set you up with a comlink, and you just hit me up on mine sometime tomorrow. We really do need to get back into town sometime before morning so as not to raise suspicions." As an aside, he reflected, "I'm not going back to my 'parents'' place, though, and eventually I plan to put down roots here on the station. You know, find some personal quarters and all that?"

Her eyes widened with glee at this latest confession from her Xander-shaped friend. Move out of his abusive parents' house and make a new home here on the Watcher? It was the best news she had heard lately, and she hoped privately that she could find some way to convince her own excuses for parents to emancipate her. Then she, too, would get a place up here on the station. Perhaps then he'd finally notice her for the woman she was and get her to move in with him, or he with her. She didn't much care; either way it went, she would be happy as long as she and Xander could finally be together.

She kept those innermost feelings to herself, though. Best to break him in slowly, she mused. "I don't blame you one bit for not wanting to stay there, Xan," she said aloud, still in sotto voce. "I had parents like that too, I'd want to move out as soon as I could. I can sympathize, really. Tony and Jessica are like, the worst. You know?"

"All too well, Wills," Xander ruminated. 'Makes you wanna move out of the country at times, just to get away from them…"

Willow allowed her eyebrow to rise ever so slightly at that comment, only less than what would have been noticed. Thankfully Xander's face was turned away from her, else Tarkin's skill at noticing body language, as necessary as it was for the sector governor for effective divining of a person's emotional state, would have allowed him to pick up on it. Her only response apart from that was, "Not my problem…"

Xander halted in his tracks as he queried in surprise, "How do you mean, Wills?" Another gift of Tarkin to Xander's psyche allowed him to minimize any emotional pain he might have incurred from such comments, and to simply follow up on them with a natural curiosity.

To his relief, Willow did explain. "I meant that my problem with my parents is not quite the same as yours, Xander. While you suffer from physical and verbal abuse on the part of your parents, mine arises from neglect. I'm a psychological experiment to my parents, not their child as they should have considered me. I would leave too, Xander, to show them just how their _experiment_ has failed."

_This sudden insight in Willow must be another of Rayne's "gifts"…_, Xander mused. As the thought occurred to him, however, another suddenly willed itself into consciousness. As Tarkin, he would have found such sentiments as Willow's and his own to be entirely agreeable. The Eriadu-born aristocrat had been thoroughly versed in manipulating the feelings and sentiments of fellow sentients, particularly the human variety. Despite his speciesism, however, he knew that to rule effectively meant he must understand the psychology of all the subjects under his domain, and so he had studied xenopsychology as intently as he did the psychology of humankind. Yet he still followed his own law, the law of the Empire and the Emperor whom he served.

As Xander Harris, however, he knew the constraints, both ethical and legal, to which he was bound. Despite all that had changed within him, he was still underage according to California state law, which mandated the age of responsibility, and therefore of adulthood, as eighteen years of age. Therefore he was bound by law until the age of eighteen to remain with his parents, in their house, as was Willow with hers, in their house, unless they could demonstrate to the appropriate authorities the extent of the abuses they had heretofore suffered. But now he heard the voice of Tarkin within him, suggesting that he seek out those same authorities and make the appropriate claims in that regard, giving him strength for the fight that must surely come.

Perhaps, though, he could find the strength to leave his old home behind. He would have to find another place to remain for the interim, though; he could not very well just inform anyone that he had relocated to the Death Star. That way led to much controversy and not a small measure of ridicule, rendering his forthcoming argument meaningless. More questions than answers would be found, not the least among which would be how come a young boy, barely seventeen years of age, had come by the means to travel to that dreaded space station, let alone taken up residence there. No, it had to be somewhere else on terra firma, and a local one at that, so as to raise the least suspicion possible aside from what was to surely arise as a result of his claim of abuse. There would be enough suspicion to abound just from that.

He would have to raise those concerns with Willow soon, but first he had a job to do…

**Somewhere else on the Vigilant Watcher**

He had indeed found the molecular furnace, and set about to producing a small number of tradeable goods which he could use to acquire funds. Creating the gold, silver, and copper for his Imperial currency would come later, but at the moment he was in need of something more familiar. He also needed a way to reason away their sudden appearance; no way in hell was he about to let his abomination of a father see them, when the very idea for his having them was to get together the money to get out of there.

Xander considered himself very fortunate, lucky even, that there was one in every city sprawl on board the station, else he would have a much longer and harder time trying to go all over the station trying to find it. So when he decided that he had had enough items made for himself, he resolved to having them placed aboard a shuttle of his own selection, which would home in on a preselected set of coordinates in a place where he could hide the shuttle. Eventually he would be discovered, but until then he had to have everything in place and ready for when he'd have to come clean with his situation. At least with the Scoobies he didn't have to hide; they were not only his crew aboard the station, but anywhere else and at all times they were his best friends and allies the world over. He could probably get Giles to find him someplace to hide his shuttle and the items he planned to sell for his getaway money, at least until he could have Tony sign the papers to emancipate him.

Were it not for Tarkin coming into Xander's life he might have found himself going to Giles and asking him to adopt him as soon as he could have declared Tony and Jessica unfit to raise him, given their very boorish and embarrassing tendencies toward drunkenness and abuse. But Tarkin, ever the calculating pragmatist and aristocrat, would have none of it. Xander smirked inwardly at the idea of the Imperial Moff complaining inside his mind, almost as though the butcher of Alderaan still lived. He could almost imagine himself having a conversation with the man, his views versus Wilhuff's, his thoughts and ideas pitted against the man's…


	16. Hard Hearts

Hard Hearts

_Disclaimer: See Chapter One_

**Sunnydale, California, the Rosenberg residence**

"Mom, Dad, I'm home! Oh that's right, isn't it? You're not home. Typical…"

Willow sighed as she stepped across the threshold of her parents' house. Since the possession she had noted a difference in the way she carried herself, as though the memory of being dead once, and a spirit, had instilled in her the new spirit of boldness she had displayed since last night. It was as though she had felt new life by reason of having been dead; there was nothing to gain by being shy and withdrawn anymore, so why waste time with it? What more could be done to her, having already been dead once? Could she die again? Perhaps, but she was alive _now_, so she would henceforth put as much into her life as she could, for the only way, she now realized with her new sense of urgency, the only way to get anything out of life was to put as much into it. No more mousy sweaters and skirts for her, she was a woman, damn it!

And she was tired now of not being noticed as a woman…

Willow thought back to that moment aboard the Watcher when Xander had asked, in his capacity now as Grand Moff, for her to learn the Aurebesh alphabet, so she could help him with reprogramming the station's core computer systems to recognize standard English for the crew that they would soon have. She had felt so good at being asked by Xander to do something for him that she had decided to act on her next impulse and suggest that they find a way to live together. She wanted her Xander-shaped friend with her always, and she would be damned if she were made to share him with another. A moment's reflection then found Willow surprised at the jealousy she suddenly felt, a sense of propriety and protectiveness that made her wish to shout to the universe that Xander was hers alone. It was as though the future of the entire human race depended on the two of them. She felt that it could not be left to others of the species, who would surely fail to preserve humankind for the future. If Willow could not have Xander with her, then the whole of humankind would go extinct, such was the primal sense that accompanied her feelings for the goofy boy who always seemed to see through to the heart of a matter, or to know precisely the words to say to bring comfort in a moment of pain.

Stepping through into her house and closing the door behind her, she resolved herself to carry out her will. She stepped towards the computer terminal in her bedroom and opened up her internet browser, and with a few strokes of the keyboard, she set the search engine to find "Aurebesh". An hour later, Willow's eyes were opened…

Her next task was to find the procedure by which to submit such evidence to the state of California as Xander would require of the long record of abuse by his parents, and thus to make his case for emancipation. She had realized that she would also have to make the same case for herself, and so she set about looking for the specific forms to file and learning just how to collect the evidence they would require. It registered only to Willow as a mild surprise how she felt no trepidation at this; the next moment's contemplation brought to light that it had been the influence of the Halloween event that had stripped her of her fear of parental retribution. She had been dead at that time, a shade of her actual self, so what more could her erstwhile parents do to her? They were hardly ever there to be much of a positive influence to her, so it mattered little. It was the reason she cared so little about raiding their first aid kit to bandage Carlos' blaster wound, the reason she was able, during her incorporeal state, to be so assertive with Cordelia in getting her to board the _Lambda_ shuttle for the Death Star. Willow then broke free of her musings with a mental shake of her head and set herself to the task of freeing herself and Xander from the negative influence that was their respective families.

The evidence of their parents' crimes, Willow surmised, would have to cover nearly their entire lives, or at least in Xander's case it would. She only remembered their beginning to neglect her from the age of eight or so, therefore from that point in her childhood she would begin to collect her own evidence. Another hour's searching through the State of California's Child Services website showed her the forms she needed to fill, and a moment's command through the mouse and graphic user interface sent the forms, in triplicate for each of them, to the printer. She then rummaged around for several manila envelopes that she had deigned to use for the containment and security of those same documents, and she had found four to her liking. They were blank, new, ideal for her purposes. She carefully placed hers and Xander's copies of the abuse reporting forms in separate envelopes, and then she paperclipped an empty envelope to each. The immediate task done, she set about getting ready to sleep, for the next several days would be trying in the extreme…

**Xander's POV**

"It would appear I am dead…" came a calm, contemplative voice in Xander's mind.

"Who is this?"

A 'tsk-tsk' immediately followed Xander's question. "My dear boy, you should know by now who I am, or was before all this…" came the suddenly-very familiar Scottish brogue, though for the owner of the voice, it may have been Eriaduan. "Though I must confess I had not imagined my afterlife would resemble anything remotely similar. Remarkable…"

A cold worm wriggled its way up Xander's spine…or it would have, if Xander had been awake. He recognized at once that he was dreaming, for there was no way that he could have heard that voice aloud in any wakeful state.

"Tarkin…."

"Let me guess…" said the Grand Moff in reply, "you 'recognized my foul stench' as soon as you heard my voice, yes? I imagine you've been waiting your entire life to say something like that to someone like myself," he added with a slight chuckle.

Xander raised an eyebrow at the irony of it. "Something like that…"

"It is rather ironic, isn't it, my dear Xander? You view a holovid…excuse me, a _movie_, and you figure you'll never encounter a sufficiently monstrous being to which you could repeat that dialogue, and then on Halloween in your year of 1997, you costume as the man you regard as nearly as monstrous as Lord Vader himself. And now, here I am, in your mind." Tarkin looked about, now that Xander could see him, having turned his gaze to meet the voice of the Eriadu nobleman. "Yet outside of your mind I am nothing more than a fiction, a figment of a screenwriter's overworked yet successful imagination. It is indeed rather ironic for both of us, yes?"

"I totally get," responded Xander to the ruminative Moff. "All that power you cultivated throughout your career, from the Outer Rim to the Death Star, and then some Rebel goes and blows up your battle station…"

"A fact that still haunts me even in this existence that I must endure," interjected the increasingly red-faced Tarkin. "I had thought the Death Star to be the ultimate deterrent in the galaxy, and for it to be laid low by one Rebel pilot in a snubfighter…"

"Was supposed to be impossible, yes, I totally get you, Wilhuff." Xander finished for him. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Your precious Empire started work on another Death Star not long after they started building the first one. They already had worked out the bugs that had been delaying the construction of your pet project, and it was still being built when the Rebellion destroyed your baby. They considered that particular vulnerability when they redesigned the thermal exhaust system, but your beloved Emperor saw the potential instead to lure the Rebellion out of hiding and get them all together in one spot, so he had it emphasized that the superlaser was to be finished and operational at all costs, even before the rest of the station itself could be finished. They covered the skin of the finished portion of the second Death Star with a mesh of millimeter-wide exhaust pores so that no-one could stuff a proton torpedo up its tailpipe. It was way bigger than your own Death Star, Wilhuff, but it fell to the Rebels also, and Darth Vader and your beloved Emperor Lord Sidious fell with it…"

As Xander spoke, Wilhuff Tarkin found himself growing increasingly pale. Another Death Star, destroyed by the Rebels before it was even finished?! The Emperor, dead?! Just how much power did the Rebels have? And could their cause indeed have been just if they were able to muster sufficient force to lay the Empire itself low?

"Dead...The Empire, the Emperor, dead even as I am dead…."

Xander slowly nodded his head as Tarkin began to accept his situation. Having shared his brain with the Grand Moff, Xander knew him more intimately than even his lover Natasi had – eww, Xander mused, homo alert, evasive maneuvers….

But he did understand that Tarkin was nothing if not pragmatic and a realist. Tarkin would come around…

"It's a new world for you, Tarkin, sharing headspace with me. There might not be an Empire to rebuild, but there are enemies for you to fight," offered Xander, "and maybe you might even take it as an opportunity to rebuild your reputation, to build a legacy, as it were."

"Ah, yes," Tarkin nodded, "your Goa'uld…this Stargate Command you have been in contact with should prove intriguing…."

"For both of us, as long as you don't go trying to take over my mind, of course. Share and share alike, is the old saying here on Earth. Remember, I know you as much as you now know me. So, any thoughts on how to deal with a pair of abominably abusive parents? While still remaining within the law, of course…"

The eyes of the Grand Moff suddenly lit up as he remembered his own harsh upbringing on Eriadu. There at least was purpose behind it, that of raising a young child to deal with a harsh world and an even harder galaxy, whereas he had seen, having been introduced to the inner thoughts of this young Xander, that the boy's parents treatment of him had been entirely without purpose, and thus most abusive.

"Of course," he smiled…

**Deck 69, Sector N-1, The Hard Heart Cantina**

The menu selection, like everything else on the station, regrettably, was written in Aurebesh, so only Teal'C could read it, and therefore it fell to him to make everyone's selections for food and drink. Even he, however, had some trouble identifying each of the food choices and coming up with Earth recipes to which he could compare them, and everyone eventually settled on nerf steak and vegetables, to include imported vaporator-grown mushrooms from Tatooine, and Corellian ale to drink. Suprisingly, everyone enjoyed the food rather immensely, and it took each of them nearly all their willpower (aside from Teal'C himself, who seemed to have willpower to spare and then some…) to resist gorging themselves on the immensely sweet meat and mushrooms. Lobster simply could not compare with what the Watcher's replicators could produce. As well, a single glass of Corellian ale was strong enough to equate with a six-pack of the strongest German import beer, so everyone had decided to forgo finishing their portion in favor of keeping their wits about them. Kinsey, naturally, refused to touch the stuff, whereas the men in SG-2 took it in stride, several of their number having been culled from the ranks of the notorious 82nd Airborne Division, whose infantrymen were famous for holding their liquor.

At some point, Hammond decided, they needed to figure out how to add Earth cuisine to the Watcher's food selections…


	17. The Revelation of Admiral Harris

The Revelation of Admiral Harris

Ship of the Line - The Death Star

Chapter 16

_Disclaimer and Author's Note - Yes, it has been quite some time since the last update, but Musie just hasn't been very cooperative of late. I have said it before, I do not abandon my fics or my readership, so here's one more update to keep it going along. Oh, I do not own these characters._

Several months later

Buffy and Giles crept through the bushes near Restfield Cemetery, their wearable comlinks securely inserted in their ears and fingers resting lightly on the firing studs of their E-11s. Willow's intel indicated that about ten suckheads were due to rise tonight right here, apparently some wannabe Master's attempt to start a gang of minions. That plan had several flaws, though.

One - they were buried in a cemetery. Hallowed ground. That was prime real estate on a Slayer's patrol route, so that reduced their chances of surviving the night by a significant margin. The sire might have been better off dragging the corpses somewhere else so their chances of rising and finding prey were better, like one of the multiple warehouses that lined the docks in the industrial district. That was its first big mistake.

Two - they were all buried in the same cemetery. It might have worked if the sire was standing there waiting for them to dig their way out, providing security, but seeing as the sire most likely was trusting its new childes to utilize their new vampiric instincts, which for a childe were largely undeveloped, they would mainly know only their thirst and home in like a pack of wild dogs on the first prey whose scent they caught. Big mistake number two.

Three - there were more than one or two risers tonight. A smart vamp would have not tried to turn so many at once. It was overreaching, and it drew the attention of not only the Slayer, but the mundane law enforcement community as well. If the cops in normal towns unlike Sunnydale found out just what went grr in the night, normal mundane people would find out and then widespread panic would ensue, and that would ruin everyone's day. As the Slayer, Buffy couldn't stand for that, and that was why she was there, with a blaster in her hands and her Watcher in the bushes on overwatch.

Peering carefully through the scope of her blaster rifle, Buffy pressed the transmit button on her comlink. "Giles," she whispered, "I have eyes on the gravesite. Nothing's moving yet." She pressed the button again, cutting her transmission and allowing Giles to speak.

"The first two or three vampires should start rising in about two to three minutes," her Watcher's voice came in over the small speaker embedded in Buffy's ear. "You should probably fire as soon as you see their heads through the scope. Don't wait another moment, or you could lose your chance for a clean shot."

She nodded her head in reflex - Giles might not have been able to see her from his position three hundred feet away, but a question passed through Buffy's mind whether or not he knew she was doing it, or whether it was just generally understood that people did things like that. Pressing the transmit button again, she replied, "Will do, Watcher-mine." She pressed it again to end the transmission, then she settled in to wait, the scope of her E-11 trained in front of the first headstone. She occupied the next minute making little circles with the targeting reticle or just imagining that she was doodling, and then her patience was rewarded when the ground at the first gravesite started to shift with the effort of something trying to claw its way up. Her hand quickly and quietly went up to her comlink and pressed the transmit button.

"Giles, dirt moving at first gravesite." A press of the button cut her transmission, and she placed the barrel of her weapon back in her hand as she set in.

"Fire when ready, Buffy," he replied. She took a breath, let it out halfway and held it, relaxing as she did so to stabilise her aim. In seconds a hand emerged from the earth in front of the headstone, then another. The head finally emerged just as Buffy's heart rate had begun to increase, and a twitch of her finger on the firing stud sent a bolt of red plasma on its way to her target. In less time than it took to blink, it hit the vampire's head, making a large burnt hole halfway through. The only evidence of a clean shot produced itself when the rest of it crumbled to dust half a second later.

"Scratch one vamp, Giles," she commed him after toggling her comlink. "Giles, do you copy?" She asked when he didn't immediately reply. She pressed the button again to verify her signal and was immediately rewarded with her Watcher's concerned voice in her ear.

"-you copy? Buffy, talk to me!"

Cursing herself for an idiot for not having clicked off her comm, she clicked on and responded, "Yeah, I hear you. We seriously need to get some comm devices that you don't have to click off every time you wanna hear the other guy.". She then clicked off again to let him speak, and not a moment too soon, either.

"Shift right, Buffy, two more are breaching the surface just now," Giles commed urgently. Buffy clicked on to acknowledge his order, then clicked off and turned to the right, just past the gravesite where her first target met his rather swift demise, where two pairs of vampiric hands were attempting to move dirt away from two holes in the ground.

Buffy clicked on and reported her findings to Giles, then clicked off. His voice then came over the comm, "Take the one on the right, I have the one on the left."

"Copy that, Giles.". She then raised the E-11, placing the folding buttstock against the pocket of her shoulder and peering through the scope. Resting her finger lightly on the firing stud, she steadied her breathing and waited.

Her patience was rewarded when the first head emerged from the Earth. Buffy stopped her breathing and pressed the firing stud, sending a packet of plasma into its head. It hit him between the eyes and burned through into his brain, whilst Buffy shifted her aim to the target on the right. She was about to shoot it, except it was already crumbling into dust along with the rest of him from the hit it had taken from Giles's own blaster.

"I said the one on the _right_, Buffy…" said Giles reproachfully. "Still, these scopes are rather helpful, aren't they?"

Still giddy from the whole experience of using laser guns to off the dentally-challenged creatures of the night, Buffy clicked on her comlink and replied, "The nifty looking aiming arrows do help there, Giles. Plus, Stormtrooper guns!"

This time she remembered to click off to listen, Giles's next words being "In my experience the only stormtroopers we ever had to worry about in history were Germans in World War II. They used MG42 machine guns and were highly accurate in their use, so let us be glad for once that the Allies won the war when they did, or else it would be these E-11s that they'd be using. I, for one, do not particularly relish the idea of a blaster bolt penetrating my stomach."

Nodding her assent, Buffy replied in a rather atrocious rendition of a London accent, "Right, then. Shall we keep going, Rupert, old bean?"

"Bloody Colonials," he muttered…

Xander couldn't move. He couldn't speak or otherwise inform someone on the fully-staffed Overbridge of his predicament.

That wasn't entirely true - he could move, but he wasn't the one doing the moving. Some other force was working its will on him, and he wasn't exactly ecstatic about it, to say the least.

The worst part was where he found himself. He wasn't wearing his Grand Admiral uniform - he was a lowly technician, assigned there for the most heinous of tasks, and it didn't take a brain like Tarkin's to know what that task was.

The general staff were convened on the Overbridge, staring at the targeting screen before them, at an image of a planet's surface, and to Xander's horror he recognised the topography all too well as the area surrounding Sunnydale. He redoubled his efforts to speak, to make some small sound or move an arm or even turn his head away from the panel before him, but his efforts were for naught. He couldn't even blink his eyes when he wanted to. He had never felt so powerless in his life.

He saw Governor Tarkin there, resplendent in his Moff's uniform, and several other unknown ranking officers. All had a look of gleeful anticipation on each of their faces as they considered the California terrain below them, but what really struck a nerve was the presence of one particular officer, one whom Xander, or rather Tarkin, was certain had met his end on a particular jungle planet.

Orson Krennic was standing there with Tarkin, giving him the stink eye. He turned his weather-beaten face toward Xander and smiled, the smugness of his countenance grating at Xander's nerves as though he knew that what was down there was not just Xander's home, and Xander felt his blood turn to ice. It wasn't the fact that he knew Xander's home was there, but that Krennic knew what was really down there. And before Xander realised what he was doing, his hands began to move of their own accord, pressing buttons, closing contacts... preparing the superlaser to fire, and within Xander's mind, he was screaming to himself "_WAKE UP, ASSHOLE! FIGHT!_"

The problem was, he could no more fight than he could protest what was happening.

"Target Sunnydale," Krennic then commanded. "Prepare a single-reactor ignition."

Xander tried to scream then, he really tried, but his voice only betrayed him when instead he replied, "Weapon ready." He couldn't even close his eyes…

"FIRE!" barked Krennic then, and Xander's hands moved again against his will, and he input the final sequence that released the firing actuator. His hand rested but for an instant before it pulled the lever down…

A bright green lance shot out from the superlaser dish and contacted Sunnydale below. It made the briefest of contacts, almost as though it were a lover's gentle touch, light as a feather. And then a fireball erupted from the point of contact, in an instant engulfing the town and expanding to the size of Los Angeles in less than a second. The assembled officers on the Overbridge viewed the spectacle in rapt attention, enamoured by the sight of the deadly flower blooming from the California coast. Their voices were hushed, fearful of uttering anything more than a whisper, as though a raised voice would cheapen the experience.

The flower continued to blossom, already expanding to the size of New York City and growing ever further, reaching higher, as though the last remnants of the Hellmouth were eager to seize the Death Star's trigger man and enfold him in its vengeful embrace. Xander found himself peering into the centre of the fireball, as the Earth's crust began to peel outward with the force of the fireball's detonation, the pressure wave pushing and ploughing up first coastal terrain, then the surrounding desert, the ash cloud only now beginning to spread across the Earth. And still the flower of destruction grew, traveling upward, reaching for the Death Star…

And as it made contact with the battle station, it superheated the quadanium steel shell, peeling away the armour like the rind of an orange, exposing deck after deck to the inferno, until it reached the Overbridge. The deckplates began to blister with the sudden heat, and then to sizzle and melt, as system after system registered complete failure before the fire claimed it. And as Xander's flesh sizzled and cracked, caressed by the flames, his last thought was -

Waking up in a cold sweat and hyperventilating, Xander sat up in a flash. Frantically, he cast his gaze to and fro just as he began to realise he had only been dreaming. He could practically hear his heart beating the rhythm of a pneumatic hammer, could feel it threaten to burst its way out of his chest like one of those damned Aliens from the films, and he silently thanked the Powers That Be that he hadn't dressed up as Kane from the Nostromo. As his breathing began to slow down and steady itself, he looked around, at the windows of his room overlooking the warehouse where his _Lambda_-class shuttle sat hidden, at his fiancée sleeping peacefully beside him, and whose very presence was a great comfort to him, at his desk where he kept all his important documents…

Where someone sat in the shadows, watching him. He reached for Willow, to shake her awake -

"Don't bother trying, you're still dreaming, Xander," a cultured, elderly and very familiar voice emanated from the shadowed figure.

Xander froze in his attempt and sat upright. He knew that voice very well, even before Halloween, and better still since the man had begun to share headspace with him.

"Tarkin," he spoke at last. "What's going on here? Why this?"

"If you're referring to the nightmares you've begun to experience, my dear Grand Admiral," and here he allowed himself a slight chuckle, "they are a message from your Powers That Be, as you call them. They're preparing you for what's to come. As for why I'm sitting here, in this dream of yours, I'm not only in your head just now, but the Powers have chosen my avatar as their conduit to pass on their message."

Xander leaned forward in his bed, then, at once nervous and suspicious at this bolt out of the blue message, but still very much interested in its contents. "OK, I'll bite. So what's the message?"

"There are powerful forces aligned against you that are preparing to make their move. In order to protect your assets here on the Hellmouth and also on the Death Star - "

"Vigilant Watcher."

Tarkin paused in mid-sentence, a brief smile only just reaching his eyes. "Very well, the Vigilant Watcher, then. It suits you. To protect your assets here and on the Watcher, you should begin to gather your forces to counter any efforts on their behalf to co-opt the station for their own purposes."

"We're in the middle of building the first ship in Earth's defence fleet, but we're gonna need more ships and more fighters if we're to stand a chance when Apophis comes for revenge. Plus the new crews are gonna need fresh training with all the new equipment. Simulation studies are gonna have to be done, shakedown cruises for all the new Star Destroyers, touching up on the final design specs of the next generation Destroyers - the Resurgence-class looks promising, but I have to change one or two things, the most obvious being the conning tower. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want something that someone could ram an A-Wing into and blow up the whole ship."

Tarkin nodded, "I never was an engineer, that was Krennic, the loathsome prima donna, but I would agree with you, that conning tower does make a rather tempting target. But I didn't come here to discuss engineering flaws in your ships, Xander…"

"You're not Tarkin, either, I'm assuming. You're clearly not in my head, even though you've taken his form, which means you're some sort of shapeshifting demon," Xander reasoned.

"Just so," 'Tarkin' acknowledged.

"You're Whistler, aren't you?" The purported Balance Demon nodded in response. "So what happened to the old look?"

"I felt it relevant to assume a form familiar to you, something that would play to your sensibilities and send a visual message along with the one your Powers That Be have sent me to relay to you."

Xander groaned. It seemed that the Universe had always sought to make him its butt monkey, yet he always managed to come out ahead. This, however, was something new to his ears. He had had it drilled into him from the cradle that only one God ever existed, but this so-called demon, if he could even be called that seemed content with merely passing messages back and forth between these so-called Powers That Be and mortal humanity.

"Who are these Powers That Be?" Xander asked, giving voice to his curiosity, "Are they gods?"

"Of a sort," Whistler admitted. "They govern the balance between good and evil, light and dark, life and death. The duality of the Universe is their purview and their remit, and they strive to preserve that balance when and where they may do so. One of their tenets is to never intervene in the affairs of mortals, allowing free will to hold sway wherever possible. When something upsets the balance, however, they take action."

Xander took all this in with an open ear and a quick mind, arriving at the point of the conversation quicker than Whistler had anticipated. "So you're here, basically, because something has visibly upset the balance, and now they want to correct it, and they need my help to do it."

Balance. Correction. Equilibrium. Xander mulled these words over in his mind, and it didn't take long to come to at least a tentative conclusion…

The Halloween incident. So much power had been poured into the Chaos spell, so much that was needed to create the Vigilant Watcher, and now the balance had been upset and needed to be corrected if the Universe were to return to some semblance of equilibrium. To balance against the power of the Death Star, something else had to be inserted into the equation. And then Xander remembered a dream about blowing up the Earth after some...two HUNDRED... Hellmouths opened on a certain day. He didn't know which day that would be, but he had the feeling that it was a number of years into the future.

Time enough, if the dream could be trusted, to build his fleet and lift the totality of humankind off the planet before the final Apocalypse was triggered. It just wouldn't happen without help. He needed to contact General Hammond and see what assets that good man could bring to bear towards his objective.

The next thought in Xander's head, however, was not so easy to dismiss. In securing the aid of the SGC, he would also be stepping into a political role, as he would also have to avoid the machinations of that odious Senator from Indiana, Robert Kinsey. On the one hand, it would have been sorely tempting to simply secure the Senator and lock him up in the same cell in AA-23 as their Goa'uld prisoner. Problem was, a clandestine rendition of the Senator would open up a whole 55 gallon drum of worms that wouldn't close. Abducting senior members of Congress, last Xander heard, was a major felony, and he was still a California citizen, damn it! But to stymie him...to stay one step ahead at all times...ah, there was the challenge. Politics wasn't the same thing as a space battle, but strategy was still called for here.

Xander discussed all this with the Tarkin avatar in his dream at length, and when a plan finally formed, a smile could be found on the old Moff's face.


	18. Agendas and Debates

Ship of the Line - The Death Star Chapter 18

IA top secret memorandum from General Hammond to President Sean Johnson concerning Project Blue Book and Stargate Command…

Due to Goa'uld mentality, since two Ha'tak class cruisers were solidly neutralised by the Death Star-class battlestation uVigilant Watcher/u in its first combat engagement, as well as the detainment of the Goa'uld Klorel, it is surmised that the System Lord Apophis will most assuredly return to Earth with a much larger force for revenge. As many options as possible for the preservation of six billion human beings need to be made available as soon as possible. Recommend declassifying the Stargate Programme and related organisations, concurrent with recommending to the Russian President and as many heads of state as possible that they do the same. Liaison recommended with Grand Admiral Alexander Harris, Tau'ri Star Navy, for bolstering crew complement and to begin shipbuilding programme, emphasising its purpose as a planetary defence force and not a multitude of national starfleets.

The necessary result of this endeavour will be a planetary governing body that can mobilise the planet's population swiftly and concentrate command elements into a unified planetary defence force, headquartered on the uVigilant Watcher/u. With the preliminary steps having been taken by the uWatcher/u and its crew toward establishing the foundation of a galactic economy via the Stargate network and the UWatcher's/u own hyperspace capabilities, the number of technologically advanced allied worlds sympathetic to our cause is expected to increase, opening more inroads for increasingly larger interstellar political alliances. The end result notwithstanding, the ability to wage a larger campaign against the Goa'uld and simultaneously evacuate an imperiled population will eventually be largely increased due to the presence of the uVigilant Watcher/u.

The necessity for colonisation of Stargate seeded worlds has thus become a top priority in the preservation of humankind. We have several worlds selected as possible sites, including our pre-established Alpha Site, for seeding with several small colonies to allow humanity to rebuild and resume normal activities, but a shipbuilding programme and a dedicated starfleet are needed in order for humanity to reach these worlds and more en masse. The uVigilant Watcher/u has facilities to build the first several ships Earth will need, but many more will be needed, and soon, and several shipbuilding facilities will need to be constructed independently of the uWatcher/u in order to accelerate and expedite construction of the needed vessels in order to meet deadline. The crew of the UWatcher/u have volunteered their assistance, with the added caveat that they may be permitted to extend offers of employment and residence on board the station to any of their community who wish to do so.

Projections estimate the next attack to occur in several months' time, which does not give much time to finish the uUSS Prometheus/u and crew her before Apophis returns. The near totality of the burden of combat will be shouldered by the uWatcher/u and its fighter complement, which will be a liability for Earth forces should the Goa'uld execute a planetwide assault…/I

buVigilant Watcher/u, Equatorial Trench, Zone 37, Naval Construction shipyard facility 4, 3 January 1998/b

The drydock and construction facility was well recessed into the primary and secondary hull of the uVigilant Watcher/u, providing excellent protection against the extreme hazards of space. Within the massive complex, mobile scaffolding and myriad construction apparatuses worked as only machines could - tirelessly, dispassionately, dutifully and unceasingly - to build what the station's commander had ordered a month ago. The uWatcher/u had been willed into being with everything it could need for any contingency, the only deficiency being a complete absence of crew. The molecular furnaces in each city sprawl worked to their uttermost capacity, churning out parts and components of a massive vessel, one of what, in the fictions to which it belonged, was once considered the backbone of the Imperial Navy. Over the past month those parts had been in various stages of assembly, as quickly as machines could work, with three weeks remaining until scheduled completion, upon which the Tau'ri Star Navy's first Star Destroyer, the USS uPrometheus/u, was scheduled to receive her crew and equipment, and after a week-long shakedown cruise would deploy to the first of many contested Goa'uld-held worlds.

On the weekends, Xander and his crew came up to the battle station to monitor things, and on more than one occasion they had to deal with one or two nations' spy satellites coming just a little too close for comfort, during which attempt they simply scrambled the satellite's data stream so no one would know what was going on and attempt to exploit such information. There was also the occasional micrometeorite storm to contend with, the occasional bit of space junk that darted past, and even dust clouds that drifted by, during which they simply closed the drydock doors and waited it out, whilst the great work of starship construction proceeded apace. Every system and vital component of the ship was tested and rechecked multiple times, run through simulation studies, and checked again before they were checked off as complete. Stress values for each section of the hull were double and triple checked, sublight drive systems were checked for tolerances at each stage up to full capacity, thrusters were examined to make sure they would function at even the most critical moments. The hyperdrive was checked, and simulations run, to make sure it would keep true to any course the navicomputer might calculate, and also to make sure the motivator wouldn't conk out at the wrong time - who wanted pieces of themselves scattered across three or more systems? Even the toilets and artificial gravity systems were rigorously tested to make sure they wouldn't fail at the same time. Nobody wanted their crap and urine floating around in zero grav to wind up in someone's face…

The Jaffa had volunteered to train as Stormtroopers, and very quickly they discarded the chain mail and blast lances that were the symbols of the false gods' domination of countless worlds, taking up the white plastoid and E-11 blaster rifles of Imperial troops. They elected not to wear helmets, as a Jaffa preferred to see the faces of his brothers and comrades, and instead wore simple headsets with eyepieces that linked to the sights on their weapons. The stormtrooper training manual was heavily altered, as Jaffa were sick of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in close ranks, firing volley after volley from their horribly inaccurate blast lances in hoping to terrify their enemy into submission. Instead, fire and maneuver from concealed positions would be the new Stormtrooper doctrine, and the Jaffa focussed their training toward that goal.

What few Jaffa that didn't volunteer to become the new Stormtrooper Corps volunteered instead to become combat pilots, and thus they began their training on TIE craft. It was assured that newer, better TIE models would go into production, ones that could be piloted by Jaffa and Tau'ri both, and they awaited completion of the first manned fighters with great relish. Until then they trained in the simulators, with data constantly being sent to both the SGC and the Overbridge for Admiral Harris to peruse and process as needed. General Hammond, in turn, relayed that data to Master Bra'tac who then sent as many Jaffa as he could spare to train as part of Xander's growing force. They arrived in tel'taks and al'kesh bombers to bolster the fighter complement until the Star Destroyers and TIE fighters could be completed.

Getting Stargate Command to release the data from the Abydos cartouche was another matter. The effort would be partly political, as any request for Stargate data and galactic map coordinates and coordinate systems would have to be cleared not only by General Hammond, but also by the Joint Chiefs and the President. With Kinsey chairing the Senate Appropriations and Select Arms Services Committees, such an effort would be problematic at best. If the data could not be released and uploaded to the uWatcher's/u systems, Xander knew, he'd have to practically map the galaxy himself, and that meant sending probes out to every corner of the Milky Way.

He'd found himself discussing that particular point to Hammond in conference one fine Saturday afternoon, the weekend after New Year's being a stressful reminder of the deadline in question…

"I can't just unilaterally release the data from the Abydos cartouche to parties who are not cleared for it. It's classified on a need-to-know basis, and I could be tried and convicted of treason if I did," Hammond repeated, for what Xander had guessed was the fifth time, over the new long-range holographic communications system they'd recently installed in Cheyenne Mountain.

The Ha'Tak from which the comms tech had been reverse-engineered was now in pieces, stored in Area 51 except for the Stargate that had been found in orbit near the wreckage, and which was now stored in one of the _Vigilant Watcher's_ hangar bays. Scientists and engineers the world over who had been read onto the Stargate Programme were gleefully poring over every inch of the two downed ships and the destroyed Death Gliders like children that had been gifted with fabulous new toys. The knowledge gleaned from the remains of the First Battle of Earth, as the recent conflict was now being called, proved invaluable.

None of that information would matter, Xander knew, when Apophis returned with the vast majority of his battle fleet, and he expressed as much to Hammond.

"Apophis is coming back, General, you and I both know this. He won't settle for enslavement of our people this time, not when he knows how thoroughly we humiliated him in our first major battle."

"That may not be all that much of a problem, given the latest intelligence we received about a week ago," countered Hammond. "A rebel group of Goa'uld who we've come to a somewhat stable agreement and trust, who call themselves the Tok'Ra, have contacted us concerning the latest chain of events unfolding within the ranks of the System Lords. Apophis, apparently, lost a very large portion of his attack strength when he faced off against you. Since then a number of the more powerful System Lords, namely Cronus, Nirrti, Sokar, and Lord Yu, have parceled out pieces of his territory and claimed them for themselves. Sokar especially has claimed a vast portion of Apophis's former empire and absorbed the remainder of his forces into his own domain. His base of operations is on the moon Netu, orbiting his throneworld Delmak. We don't yet have a designation for it, but from what I've heard, if you're looking to go vacationing on another planet, don't go there. Sokar has terraformed Netu to resemble, well, Hell."

"I think of Hell, General, and the name Mustafar springs to mind. I hate to say it, but if these System Lords hated Apophis as much as they did, how much more will they fear us for having kicked his ass as hard as we did? As far as I can see, we've obviously made a strong case for them to come after us - we're a threat to their dominion of the galaxy. Wouldn't you agree?" Xander clasped his hands over his waistline and waited for Hammond's response.

Hammond nodded. "While I do agree in principle with that assessment, there's more. The Tok'Ra aren't the only enemies of the Goa'uld. We came across a world called Cimmeria, where the natives worship the Norse gods. Apparently, from SG-1's findings, these Norse gods are really an advanced race called the Asgard, and they've appeared to the Cimmerians in holographic form as the Norse deities, while declaring Cimmeria off limits to the Goa'uld under what they call the Protected Planets Treaty."

Xander nodded in reply, "And you want to get the Asgard to negotiate with the Goa'uld to place Earth under this treaty, I take it. Smart move, it'll take the heat off of Earth for awhile, give us enough time to finish building the fleet. Which, by the way, uPrometheus/u should be completed and ready to start a shakedown cruise in three weeks' time."

"Have you submitted your request for crew to the UN?"

Xander tilted his head and affected a smirk. "Need you ask? The Security Council has already offered several candidates for positions in her command hierarchy, and I've been going through them with a fine-toothed comb. Needless to say, I've had to throw out a few because they just gave me the impression of being too loyal to their country to put on a uniform like mine."

"Obviously you're not planning on calling it the Imperial Navy, are you?" queried the General.

"Tau'ri Star Navy. Makes a statement to the rest of the galaxy that we're not a multinational force but the first line of defence for the human race as a whole against any aggressors, and also says the same to our own people. If you love your country more than your world, don't put on this uniform is all I say." Another sideways head tilt drove Xander's point home.

"Returning to the issue at hand, however," Xander continued, "uploading the Abydos cartouche to the iWatcher's/i database would make mapping the galaxy much easier, so that when we finally start trying to locate and map hyperspace routes we're not doing it in the blind. Sending out probe droids would do the same job but take a hell of a lot longer, but the added advantage of dispatching probe droids would be that we can fit them with holographic communications relays, and you wouldn't have to depend on the Stargate to communicate with any units you send out."

Hammond crossed his arms, allowing one hand to reach his chin, thumb and forefinger stroking it contemplatively. "That's an interesting proposal," he conceded, "but sending the probes out through space would take too much time, even with the uPrometheus/u loaded up with them to spread them out. Sending the probe droids with the commo relays through the Stargate would take far less time, and it would help cut down on the time needed to send actionable intelligence back here to the SGC once the relays are in place and operational. Can you give me a schedule of when the first batch of probe droids can be ready to send down here?"

Xander smiled. "No problemo, give me a week to get my crew back up here, and then they and my Free Jaffa volunteers will equip the droids for dispatch. I think we can put about ten on a cargo shuttle and send them down once they're ready. I'm going to need an estimate of how many droids will be sent through at a time so I know how many shuttles to send down. The fewer the better, I say, so they don't raise any more suspicion than absolutely necessary."

Hammond nodded, "Alright, you'll have our estimate by the time you're ready to send down the first shuttle. SGC out."

The general's image derezzed as the connection was broken, and Xander reached for his comlink, a determined expression on his face. "Rupert, this is Xander. Come in, over?"

A few seconds passed before the comlink crackled to life. "Ah, yes, Xander, I'm here? Though I swear I didn't think I'd have to use this infernal device quite so soon. Ah, over?" he added, almost as an afterthought.

"Better get used to it. I just got off the comm with General Hammond, and we've got ourselves a job to do. I need everyone back up here next weekend to get some equipment ready to send down to the Mountain, how copy, over?"

Giles paused before answering, "Yes, erm, good copy. Buffy will have to be able to come back down to patrol so we can keep the demon population in check, but as long as she has a blaster and some appreciable armour she should be able to keep the patrols short. Erm, over."

Xander nodded. "Good call, Rupert. She'll need every advantage. In fact, I think I can rustle up some very nifty gear for her to use against the nightlife. How do a vibrosword and some concussion grenades sound?"

"Concussion grenades, Xander?"

"Stun grenades, basically. Make a very bright flash and a loud bang. Vamps and various other demonic species have uber-sensitive vision and hearing at night, so they'll be completely blind and deaf when Buffy makes with the dusty. A vibrosword is basically what it sounds like, a long blade with a power source to make it vibrate at various settings to cut through various materials. A low power buzz will have it cut through bone and flesh, the high powered settings can make it cut through anything from reinforced concrete to solid steel. The cutting edge is only a few molecules thick, and doesn't need to be sharpened. Demon hides won't stand a chance against such a weapon."

"Hmm, that sounds very excellent. But the armour? Does it exist in her size?"

Xander smiled. "Yes, there were females in the Stormtrooper Corps, though they were few and rarely seen. None of them ever qualified for the Death Trooper units, they're like the Navy Seal equivalent of Stormtroopers and the training pipeline was so brutal nine out of ten candidates died in training."

"They died in training?" Giles responded incredulously.

"Correctamundo, Rupes. Imperial outlook, a trooper's life wasn't worth as much to the Empire as we would have it. Most stormtrooper units were trained to attack in waves. You know, the old saw about quantity being a quality all its own? The Death Troopers were like the Navy Seals or the Russian Spetsnaz, they were intelligence gathering units, deep recon, espionage, black ops stuff. The Empire invested a great deal of credits into establishing and refining the training course to be as brutal as possible, and only the strongest and most capable candidates ever qualified for selection. A Death Trooper could qualify for service as one of the Emperor's personal guard if he or she earned a sufficiently ambitious and ruthless reputation both during training and on deployments. Just like their officers - the Emperor made it a point for the Imperial Academies to graduate only those officers with a propensity for evil and cruelty. But that's neither here nor there. Point is, Giles, I think I might be able to use one of the molecular furnaces to custom design a full suit of Death Trooper armour for Buffy to wear on patrols, but I know she won't wear the helmet, so I'll have to fashion some sort of headset for her to wear for comms. Say, about three days to gather her physical specs and synthesise a body glove and armour attachments from that? I'll need her up here on the station for the first day to get those measurements programmed into the molecular furnace, then we just let it work, and in 48 hours she comes back to pick up her armour and try it on."

"Hmm," replied Giles, "three days sounds good. You may also wish to have her vibrosword and a full set of magazines for her blaster ready for her to acquire after she gets scanned in, in case she finds herself wanting for munitions."

"Very good," Xander contemplated as he pondered the possibilities. I think I might forward this to the SGC as well as the Free Jaffa, see what Teal'c and Bra'tac think of switching out their chain mail for plastoid. That's the stuff stormtrooper armour's made from. Feels like plastic, just as light, but about ten times harder than Kevlar and can diffuse most energy weapons fire, except a straight shot."

"I'm rather surprised you haven't already offered plastoid armour to the SGC for their operatives. Surely against the Goa'uld they would appreciate such an advantage in protective equipment," Giles remarked chidingly.

"I'll get on that eventually, and at the same time I'll need to really look through the database in the uWatcher/u's computers and see just what sort of nasty surprises the Empire had a mind to use. How much would you bet that they had nukes bigger that anything we'd ever make?"

"Just so, Xander, although I expect we couldn't imagine anything bigger than Tsar Bomba…"

Xander sighed then, sounding very much like the youth he was, albeit a youth with the weight of a galaxy on his shoulders.

"Xander, are you alright?" Giles said, with more than a degree of concern in his voice for his young protegé, as if reading his thoughts.

"Yeah. I'm just suddenly remembering how old I am, and that I shouldn't have all this responsibility, and that, by rights, I should be down on Earth with my so-called parents instead of here on a battle station that shouldn't exist, and I shouldn't have been put in a situation where I ended up commanding a rescue operation for Air Force soldiers that should be far better trained than anyone I know. But I do, and I'm here, and if I hadn't given the order to open fire on those two pyramid ship thingies we'd be facing an alien invasion right now, possibly occupation and enslavement."

"Sounds rather like you've grown up, Xander Harris," admonished Giles over the comlink, even as Xander, having slumped down in his command chair a minute previously, had worried about Tarkin's influence on his mind and personality. "You've already proved yourself a most capable leader on several occasions, and the fact that you're admitting your concerns about the circumstances only shows how much you've matured. Don't doubt yourself, Xander - from what I've seen you'd do well to trust your instincts, even if you don't trust who or where they come from."

"Speaking of instincts, Rupert, I don't think we've heard the last from that scum Kinsey."

"Beg pardon?" replied Giles worryingly.

"On a hunch, I had the Stargate from Apophis's ship tractored in to one of the holding bays here on the uWatcher/u, and stored inert. Doctor Jackson explained how the Stargates connect to each other, and so I put two and two together and figured that if you try to have two or more active Stargates at the same point of origin, then you're gonna have a whole boatload of problems. I'll get to the nuts and bolts on Stargate mechanics at a later time, but suffice it to say that if the good Senator gets his slimy hands on our Stargate then he can circumvent the SGC completely and have only his people running ops around the galaxy."

"He'd be in a prime position to push his agenda for the Stargate programme through the Senate and cut the military out of the operation entirely," Giles noted, "plus he'd eventually be able to assemble enough assets to seize the uVigilant Watcher/u by force if he needed to."

"Two birds with one stone," Xander confirmed. "He could shut down the SGC permanently and set up offworld operations that he could use to assemble a sizeable force to take over the station. From there, who knows, but I'd bet you a hundred Gold Imperials that he'd use the station against America's enemies. Any nation that didn't kowtow to his demands would find themselves vapourised the next hour, and Kinsey would call it 'God's vengeance against the unrighteous' or some such spin like that. There'd be a massive outcry like nobody has ever witnessed, with people taking sides left and right. After that would come anarchy, martial law, breakdown of social order planetwide…the conspiracy nuts would have a field day."

After a pensive moment, Xander added, "I shudder to think of the likes of Kinsey uttering the words 'commence primary ignition.' I just hope I've got all my bases covered. Tarkin was a genius at politics and military stuff, but he also had years of experience with this. Compared to him, I'm what? A scared teenager who's just as afraid of pissing off a US Senator as I am of using the planet-buster on anything."

Xander must have imagined that Giles was polishing his glasses again. He was down on Earth, not up here on the station, so he couldn't get caught wearing his uniform, but if he could, Xander figured the tweed-clad Watcher would find a way to hide a hanky in it. At length Giles' voice issued from the comlink again.

"I can't tell you that you need to banish your fear, nor would I try. The fact that you've been able to express your fears about this rather singular situation is proof to me, though, that you're as mature as the rest of us 'grown folk', to use the vernacular. But all you need to do is accept that fear and let it pass, and think your way around it. Look for the good in every alternative, and you'll always make the right decision, Xander. You've shown great courage already as a man at war against the supernatural. What's a megalomaniacal politician compared to that?" Giles chuckled.

"Ugh," Xander cringed, "don't get me started on the Emperor. I could tell you some stories from Tarkin's point of view that would make you terrified to go to bed at night."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. The films don't even tell half the story of Sheev Palpatine. I've stood in front of that...man, I've looked into his eyes. I felt it, Giles. The hate, the malevolence, the cruelty. I swear, he's the only person I've ever known who I might say was born evil. There was never an ounce of goodness in that monster, from the moment he was born to the last moments when Vader threw him down that reactor shaft on the second Death Star. Never."

"I humbly apologise, Xander. I never understood just how potent his memories were in your mind."

"Well, now you know," Xander stated. "But we don't have a whole lot of time. I still need everyone up here to get those probe droids prepped and ready to deploy through the SGC Stargate. We need a Holonet to advance our plans against the Goa'uld, and I want to at least get this started before the uPrometheus/u is finished."

"How's your search for crew coming along?"

Xander thought back to all those reports he'd read, and it filled him with woe.

"It's almost a non-starter, Giles," he sighed. "I'm starting to think the only people we'll be able to put aboard her will be Jaffa and US personnel. Everyone else has some sort of agenda for their country that puts them in direct conflict with my ideals."

"Have you thought about allowing each nation to have their own Starfleet, but with the caveat that in a planetary emergency their fleets will be suborned to the Tau'ri Star Navy?"

Xander laughed, "I'd still have to be able to convince them that such an emergency is not only possible but likely, and we still can't very well tell them that the Goa'uld are out there, can we?" His tone turned more serious as he continued. "We gotta figure out something else, but in the meantime, the ships we build will just have to be US assets."

"Agreed," said Giles. "Look, Xander, I have to sign off for a faculty meeting, but let's do keep in touch. Cheers."

The comlink switched off with a muted beep, and Xander was left to contemplate the events of the immediate future. He had a war to wage against an alien enemy, he had a Senator to keep at bay, and he possibly had to ensure that humanity could either avert or otherwise survive an impending demonic invasion and cataclysm. But even the first of those events would take place no earlier than six months or so down the road, and Xander had more pressing matters to attend to.

In three weeks' time the Tau'ri Star Destroyer uPrometheus/u would be ready for her shakedown cruise. Xander just hoped the Jaffa that signed on with him would prove to be as good a crew for her as they'd been so far on the uWatcher/u...

B15 January 1998, Sunnydale City Hall/b

"Allan? Would you step into my office, please?"

Allan Finch could tell that his boss, Mayor Richard Wilkins the Third, was not happy. The cold feeling in his blood that usually indicated Wilkins's displeasure had returned with a vengeance. Cautiously he approached the double doors that separated the Mayor's office from the rest of City Hall, fearful of whatever novel means of torment might greet him, not that he'd ever suffered his boss's displeasure before. But there was always a first time for everything. Allan hesitantly reached upward with his fist to knock, and the door opened just a microsecond before his knuckles made contact.

His first instinct was to turn and run, as the face that greeted him was that of James MacTaggart, Wilkins's vampire bodyguard. He quickly suppressed it, however, by mentally reciting the Lord's Prayer, and MacTaggart stepped politely aside as Finch stepped through, stopping in front of Wilkins's modestly appointed desk.

"You wanted to see me, Richard?" Finch queried, keeping the nervousness at being in such close proximity to his boss from showing in his face through long and practised effort.

The Mayor was reading a document on his desk. Without looking up, he responded, "I'm unhappy, Allan. Oh, not with you, though, not with you." He quickly amended, seeing the nervousness in his deputy's face kick up another notch. At Allan's relieved sigh, he said, "It's the latest city budget proposal. We're not seeing the growth rate we expected last quarter. In fact, it's been declining ever since November. Care to give me a guess as to why?"

"Perhaps the demon population has finally started to make their big push?" Allan submitted.

"Doesn't explain these figures," Wilkins opined, seeing through Allan's deception. "For one thing, the human mortality rate has declined very swiftly since November." He held up a hand to forestall his deputy's next supposition before he could start. "I know, it's always been at record lows since the Summers girl arrived last year to start her sophomore term, but that doesn't explain the record increase in the demon mortality rate, nor does it explain the recently consistent method of their demise. People are actually coming into Sunnydale to settle in, but they don't take jobs here in town. It's that Harris kid and that darned Death Star that are taking our people away from the Hellmouth." As he spoke, Wilkins became increasingly livid. "He's ruining my plans for my Ascension, and he's going to turn this fine community of ours into a ghost town by year's end. Does that sit well with you? Because with me, it does not." Wilkins paused for a moment to calm down, and at length he continued. "Well, my mother always said that it was never good to let your feelings run away with you. Dear sweet Mom...when she passed on, I made sure to thank her for all her sound advice. She breathed her last before I could finish eviscerating her, but then, them's the breaks."

Allan knew how to disguise his revulsion well, having had long years of practice. He noiselessly swallowed his bile and spread his hands, evincing ignorance. "Then we need to either make sure we can get some of the demon population onto the station or else we cut off the flow of human traffic to the battle station. The question is, how do we do it?"

Wilkins smiled at that question. "That's a good question, Allan, and I'm glad you asked because I happen to have a possible solution. A good friend of mine that happens to be serving in our great Senate has dropped one or two hints that the Death Star's chief of security might just happen to be the teenage daughter of one of his foremost campaign contributors. Does the name Gregory Chase ring a bell to you?"

"I believe it does. Isn't he one of the more influential members of the school board?" opined Finch.

"Indeed he is. I think I remember nominating him for that position myself, as a matter of fact," said the Mayor, with a reflective tilt of the head. "A little favour to him as a reward for contributing to my own reelection campaign was due him, I felt. And so now I believe it's time to call in a favour of my own."

A light dawned on Allan Finch's face, a light that nearly betrayed the horror he felt. But until the time was right, Allan mused, he would have to play the part of the dutiful Deputy Mayor. He schooled his features, permitting not one ounce of emotion to show on his face.

"You want to put pressure on Mr Chase to get his daughter off the Death Star?"

"A bit bluntly put, Allan, but yes, if we exert enough financial leverage, say through the IRS, it might cause Mr Chase to cave in and 'request' that his daughter resign her post as Chief of Security and return to her hometown, and right back in the lap of luxury where she belongs. The simplicity lends a certain elegance to that plan, don't you agree?"

Allan paused before questioning. "It might be prudent to contact Senator Kinsey, Richard. Gregory Chase has been not only your biggest campaign contributor, but his financial firm has been Kinsey's as well, even if Kinsey isn't a California Senator. If we somehow ''disclose' the fact that Greg Chase has been misreporting his earnings on his tax returns, then that may put us in a position to exert a bit of leverage ourselves. We could push a request through to Sunnydale County for a paternity test to be conducted on Mr and Mrs Chase - he has been known to put his eggs in more than one basket, so to speak. And also, we should contact the Sacramento office of Health and Human Services, in case Mr Chase gets the family lawyer to shut it down in County, and the State can overturn it and formally require the Chases to submit to a paternity test. We then seal them and the IRS records and keep them as leverage to use against them if they don't play ball with us."

A slight chuckle escaped the Mayor's lips. "You are entirely ruthless and Machiavellian, Allan - a man after my own heart. Good thing I don't have one, that is to say. Speaking of which, how goes the search for the Box of Gavrok? Any leads?"

"Well, there may be one or two possible persons who could hold the Box, one demon and one human, but we'll need to circumvent the Watchers' Council's new Slayer from Jamaica, this Kendra…"

"Allan, let me stop you right there," Wilkins interrupted. "In the first place, this Kendra whatever her name is cannot be the Slayer because she's here in Sunnydale. Buffy Summers, remember? In the second, there can never be more than one Slayer at any given time, because one must die for another to be called, correct?"

"Sir, do you remember the Master, and his efforts to bring about the so-called "Harvest"?"

"Yes, the Slayer destroyed him, as I recall. I should probably congratulate her for that, even though the prophecy did state that he would kill her."

"He did kill her, Richard. He bit her, partially drained her and then he left her in a puddle of water to drown. She didn't exactly istay/i dead, though. Turns out the guy who would be Tarkin brought her back with CPR, and lo and behold, we now have two Slayers."

Wilkins sighed. "Ok, now I'm disappointed. We would have been fine with just one Slayer here on the Hellmouth - Miss Summers would have kept the demonic community off my scent while I finished my preparations for Ascension. Two Slayers, Allan, will be far more troublesome. This Kendra - what did you say her last name was?"

"I didn't, Richard, but it's Young. Kendra Young."

Wilkins nodded his head. "Ah, yes. Kendra Young should receive a proper welcome, don't you agree?"

"What about her Watcher?"

"Him too. Invite them to City Hall. A private celebration away from the eyes of the public, guaranteeing their secrecy, thus ensuring that our own Slayer and her Watcher don't send in Stormtroopers or otherwise meddle with us."

"I don't mean to be too bold here, Richard, but -"

"Nonsense, Allan, speak your mind!"

"The Slayer and her people, or at least our Slayer, don't need to send in Stormtroopers - they've been seen carrying blasters, too, so I wouldn't think much of our chances if they decide we're up to no good…"

"And they won't," said Wilkins with a smile, "because we'll show them that we're on the level, and that we have no nefarious intentions, as Mr Giles might say."

Buffy decided that tonight she'd only use her blaster in cases of absolute emergency, as she had been feeling especially antsy with the urge to get in close and grapple with her mortal enemy. The blaster was fine in a pinch, but to her Slayer's mind it could very easily become a crutch. If she lost her edge, it was Bye Bye Captain Summers, and the newly-minted Imperial officer did not want that, no siree. Besides, she wanted to Slay another starship one of these days, preferably by using the big superlaser dish on the uWatcher/u, but she wouldn't have that chance if some fangface got lucky one night because she was too used to shooting them and not Slaying them.

What did give her an edge tonight was not the blaster in her hand, but the headset she was wearing, with a distinctive flat lens that could pivot in front of her eye to filter and display things that gave off heat signatures, as well as a few things that didn't. Tonight she was testing out the infrared wavelengths to get a feel for the device. She knew vamps gave off no body heat, so she wanted to see if the IR filter would still catch them moving, even if it was telling her there was nothing there. And if that didn't work, then she'd switch over to the ultraviolet setting and see if that showed her anything. She was only testing those two filters tonight, but there were others she could try.

Xander had given her the device from the uWatcher/u after digging around in the files, and he had instructed her to meet his shuttle tomorrow evening, to fly up to the battle station to be fitted for her very own customised stormtrooper suit. She had agreed in principle with the idea of wearing personal protection, but as Xander predicted, she had firmly drawn her line in the sand at anything that would give her helmet hair, thus the headset. He had also told her that next weekend he wanted everyone on the station to ferry down some probe droids to the SGC mountain complex - he was finally getting around to building a rudimentary Holonet, right at the same time the first Star Destroyers were to roll off the line. They were stepping up big time, and there was no turning back after the first deployments got underway.

Buffy caught herself with a jerk - she did not like getting distracted when she needed to focus on what she was doing. She blinked her eyes rapidly to force herself to break her mind away from that wayward track and back to the here and now, and she renewed her scans with eager intensity. Her breathing softened as she focussed her vision through the IR filter. Tiny green specks indicated insects flitting about, but that was it - plants emitted no waste heat, so they didn't register through the eyepiece. Buffy decided she'd get no info here, so she followed her Slayer senses to a freshly-covered grave where something told her someone was due to wake up from their dirtnap. She looked around for a good hiding spot where she could observe the goings-on without being spotted, and she watched carefully through the infrared filter.

Twenty minutes later she caught herself almost humming a little tune, but something else got her attention. Carefully she turned her head this way and that to make sure the headset wasn't malfunctioning and hadn't come loose on her, and satisfied, she watched as the dirt began to move. Slowly at first, but with greater speed and urgency as the minutes wore on, the earth shifted and finally gave way as a pair of hands emerged, followed by a head.

"Nothing anomalous here, and yay me for using a sciencey word," muttered the Imperial Captain quietly as softly as she dared. There was no body heat radiating from the animate corpse, of course, but the shifting in patterns of ambient temperature told her through the eyepiece that there was movement occurring. Her hopes were elevated, and she smiled as she carefully switched the filter to ultraviolet.

Her results were the same with the ultraviolet filter as with the infrared. Gradual shifting in background energy patterns showed movement, but no radiation in that band. Still, her questions were answered for tonight, so she resigned herself to an easy Slaying, but hopefully not too easy. Buffy sighed as she checked the Velcro holster on her back where her blaster was attached, then she tugged lightly on the sling to make sure it was still in place as she scanned the vicinity for any potential problems. Thus far content, she pulled out her stake and waited for Mister or Miss Overbite to finish extracting themselves from their comfy little hole in the ground…

Thirty seconds later, Buffy declared that itch well and fully scratched, and she decided to call it a night. She was reaching for the headset to turn off the eyepiece when a flicker of movement caught her eye. She missed the contact to turn off the device and instead reset the filter to infrared, just as she was turning her head in the direction of movement. A blotch of green light in roughly the shape of a human girl then illuminated the eyepiece with no advance warning.

"Merde!" swore Buffy as she stowed her stake and reached behind her for her blaster. "Hold it right there, whoever you are!" she shouted to her potential opponent. A kick to the small of her back was the only answer she received.

Whoever this person was, they were strong. Vampire strong at the very least. It was clearly not a vampire as it had been giving off body heat, but judging by the attack, not a demon either. That left only one answer, an impossible answer. Buffy then set her blaster to stun and raised it to her shoulder to take aim, turning in a slow circle to locate her target.

Just when she finished half her circle, Buffy felt her weapon get knocked out of her grasp by a powerful and graceful kick from her target, which had approached behind her. Instinctively she took up a fighting stance, and her target revealed herself. It was a young woman with long, straight black hair tied back and a mocha complexion, wearing a brown shirt with long sleeves over a white undershirt and black jeans that looked fashionable and comfortable, if rather outdated. She took up her own stance in answer to Buffy's challenge.

"Ye be no demon, I see," she spoke, in a warm, lilting Carribbean accent. "Them do not use guns and gadgets, so who and what be ye?"

"I be Buffy Summers," replied the Slayer with a quick tilt of her head. "Just a girl who goes out at night and fights the good fight. Who be you?"

The young Caribbean tilted her own head and looked askance at her. "Ye cannot be Buffy Summers. She be drowned and dead many months past."

"Nope," Buffy replied, popping the "p". "Got bit, got drowned, got CPR'd back to life, so very much alive, thank you for asking. Speaking of asking, I'll ask again. iWho/i are iyou/i?"

"I am Kendra," she answered back with a seemingly regal lift of her chin, "de Vampire Slayer."

"Hmm," Buffy considered, taking in this new information, and then coming to a decision. "We need to go see Giles. My Watcher."

"Rupert Giles, ye say?" Kendra queried in disbelief. "Then truly ye be Buffy Summers, but still, ye cannot be de Slayer. Dere can be only one, and I am she."

"Spare me the Highlander cliché," snorted Buffy in derision, "and help me find my blaster. You know, the one you kicked out of my hand?"


End file.
